III. WORLDLY GOODS…

III. WORLDLY GOODS

Tomorrows shall be as yesterdays; And so for ever! saints enough Has Holy Church for priests to praise; But the chief of saints for workday stuff Afield or at board is good Saint Use, Withal his service is rank and rough; Nor hath he altar nor altar-dues, Nor boy with bell, nor psalmodies, Nor folk on benches, nor family pews. MAURICE HEWLETT, The Song of the Plow.

In many ways the most valuable general account of monastic property at the close of the middle ages is to be found in the great Valor Ecclesiasticus, a survey of all the property of the church, compiled in 1535 for the assessment of the tenth lately appropriated by the King[264]. It is true that only 100 out of the 126 nunneries then in existence are described with any detail and that the amount of detail given varies very much for different localities. Nevertheless the record is of the highest importance, for in order to assess the tax the gross income of each house is given (often with the sources from which it is drawn, classified as temporalities and spiritualities) and the net income, on which the tenth was assessed, is obtained by subtracting from the gross income all the necessary charges upon the house, payments of synodals and procurations, rents due to superior lords, alms and obits which had to be maintained under the will of benefactors, and the fees of the regular receivers, bailiffs, auditors and stewards.

Such a survey as the Valor Ecclesiasticus, though valuable, could not by its nature give more than the most general indication of the main classes of receipts and expenditure of the nunneries. The accounts kept by the nuns themselves, on the other hand, are a mine of detailed information on these subjects. Every convent was supposed to draw up an annual balance sheet, to be read before the nuns assembled in chapter, and though it was a constant source of complaint against the head of a house that she failed to do so, nevertheless enough rolls have survived to make it clear that the practice was common. Indeed it would have been impossible to run a community for long without keeping accounts. The finest set of these rolls which has survived from a medieval nunnery is that of St Michael's Stamford, in Northamptonshire[265]. There are twenty-four rolls, beginning with one for the year 32-3 Edward I, and ranging over the greater part of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A study of them enables the material life of the convent for two centuries to be reconstructed and gives a vivid picture of its difficulties, for though the nuns only once ended the year without a deficit and a list of debts, yet the debts owed by various creditors to them were often larger than those which they owed.

A very good series also exists for St Mary de Pre, near St Albans, kept by the wardens 1341-57 and by the Prioress 1461-93[266]; and there is in the Record Office a valuable little book of accounts kept by the treasuresses of Gracedieu (Belton) during the years 1414-18, which has been made familiar to many readers by the use made of it by Cardinal Gasquet in English Monastic Life[267]. Very full and interesting accounts have also survived from St Radegund's Cambridge (1449-51, 1481-2)[268], Catesby (1414-45)[269] and Swaffham Bulbeck (1483-4)[270]. These are all prioresses' or treasuresses' accounts of the total expenditure of the different houses; but there are in existence also a few obedientiaries' accounts, chambresses' accounts from St Michael's Stamford and Syon and cellaresses' accounts from Syon[271]. An analysis of these accounts shows, better than any other means of information, the various sources from which a medieval nunnery drew its income, and the chief classes of expenditure which it had to meet. It will therefore be illuminating to consider in turn the credit and debit side of a monastic balance sheet.

It is perhaps unnecessary to postulate that since monastic houses differed greatly in size and wealth, the sources of their income would differ accordingly. A very poor house might be dependent upon the rents and produce of one small manor; a large house sometimes had estates all over England. The entire income of Rothwell in Northamptonshire was derived from one appropriated rectory, valued in the Valor at L10. 10_s._ 4_d._ gross and at L5. 19_s._ 8_d._ net per annum[272]. The Black Ladies of Brewood (Staffs.) had an income of L11. 1_s._ 6_d._ derived from demesne in hand, rents and alms[273]. On the other hand Dartford in Kent held lands in Kent, Surrey, Norfolk, Suffolk, Wiltshire, Wales and London[274], the Minoresses without Aldgate held property in London, Hertfordshire, Kent, Berkshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Norfolk and the Isle of Wight[275]. The splendid Abbey of Syon held land as far afield as Lancashire and Cornwall, scattered over twelve counties[276]. Similarly the proportionate income derived from house-rents and land-rents would differ with the geographical situation of the nunnery. London convents, for instance, would draw a large income from streets of houses, whereas a house in the distant dales of Yorkshire would be dependent upon agriculture. At the time of the Valor twenty-two nunneries were holding urban tenements in fifteen towns, amounting in total value to L1076. 0_s._ 7_d._, but of this sum L969. 11_s._ 10_d._ was held by the seven houses in London[277]. With this proviso the conclusion may be laid down that the money derived from the possession of agricultural land, and in particular the rents paid by tenants in freehold, copyhold, customary and leasehold land, was the mainstay of the income paid into the hands of the treasuress.

A word may perhaps be said as to the method by which the nuns administered their estates. Miss Jacka distinguishes two main types of administration, discernible in the Valor:

The London houses, except Syon and a number, chiefly, of the smaller nunneries scattered throughout the country, had a single staff of officials, steward, bailiff, auditor, receiver; their revenues were drawn from scattered rents and other profits rather than from entire manors. There seem to have been about forty houses of this type in addition to the London houses. The second group comprises the great country nunneries in the south of England, including Syon and a number of smaller houses whose revenues were reckoned under the headings of various manors each managed by its own bailiff.... The staff of Syon may be taken as an unusually complete and elaborate example of the usual system, whose principle appears worked out on a smaller scale, in the case of smaller nunneries. The nuns had in the first place what may be called a central staff, a steward at L3. 6_s._ 8_d._, a steward of the hospice at L23. 15_s._ 4_d._, a general receiver at L19. 13_s._ 4_d._ and an auditor at L8. 3_s._ 4_d._ Their lands in Middlesex were managed by their steward of Isleworth, Lord Wyndesore, whose fee was L3, a steward of courts at L1 and a bailiff at L2. 13_s._ 4_d._, who had a separate fee of 13_s._ 4_d._ as bailiff of the chapel of the Angels at Brentford. Their extensive possessions in Sussex were managed by a receiver and a steward of courts for the whole county, whose fees were L3 and L2 respectively, by four stewards for various districts with fees from L1. 6_s._ 8_d._ down to 13_s._ 4_d._ and by 13 bailiffs arranged under the stewards, of whom one received L2. 3_s._ 4_d._ and the rest from L1 to 6_s._ 8_d._ Their one manor in Cambridgeshire was managed by a steward at 13_s._ 4_d._ and a bailiff at L1. With the central staff was reckoned a receiver for Somerset, Dorset and Devon, whose fee was L6. 13_s._ 4_d._; the ladies held no temporalities in Somerset; in Dorset they had a chief steward, L1. 6_s._ 8_d._, a steward of courts, 6_s._ 8_d._, and a bailiff, 11_s._, and their large possessions in Devon were managed by two stewards (L2. 13_s._ 4_d._), two stewards of courts (13_s._ 4_d._, 6_s._ 8_d._), six bailiffs, with fees ranging from 4_s._ to L2 and an auditor, 3_s._ 4_d._ They received L100 a year from unspecified holdings in Lancashire and had there a steward of courts at L1. Their possessions in Lincolnshire were mainly spiritual, but they employed a receiver, whose fee was 13_s._ 4_d._ In Gloucestershire they had large possessions. The two chief stewards of Cheltenham received each L3. 6_s._ 8_d._ and the chief steward of Minchinhampton L2. Two stewards of courts each received L1. 6_s._ 8_d._ and the two stewards at Slaughter L1. Three bailiffs received L2. 13_s._ 4_d._, L2 and 13_s._ 4_d._, with livery. A bailiff and receiver of profits arising from the sale of woods was paid L4 and the steward of the abbot of Cirencester was paid 6_s._ 8_d._ for holding the abbess' view of frankpledge. In Wiltshire the nuns held a manor and a rectory and paid L1 to a steward for both: they seem to have been leased. In counties where all their possessions were spiritual they had no local officials; in Somerset both the rectories they held were leased and in Kent, although that is not stated, it is suggested by the round sums which were received (L26. 13_s._ 4_d._, L10, L20). The leasing of property for a fixed sum of course made the administration of it very much simpler. All the temporalities of the Minoresses without Aldgate were leased and their staff consisted of a chief steward, Lord Wyndesore, whose fee was L2. 13_s._ 4_d._, a receiver at L4. 5_s._ 10_d._ and an auditor at 13_s._ 4_d._[278]

A closer analysis of the chief sources of income of a medieval nunnery, as they may be distinguished in the Valor and in various account rolls, is now possible. They may be classified as follows: Temporalities, comprising: (1) rents from lands and houses, (2) perquisites of courts, fairs, mills, woods and other manorial perquisites, (3) issues of the manor, i.e. sale of farm produce, (4) miscellaneous payments from boarders, gifts, etc.; and Spiritualities, comprising (5) tithes from appropriated benefices, alms, mortuaries, etc. The distinction between temporalities and spiritualities is a technical one and there was sometimes little difference between the sources of the two kinds of income, but the temporal revenues were usually larger[279].

(1) Rents from lands and houses. A house which possessed several manors besides its home farm would either lease them to tenants ("farm out the manor" as it was called), or put in bailiffs, who were responsible for working the estates and handing over to the convent the profits of their agriculture, and who may also have collected rents where no separate rent collector was employed. For besides the profits arising from the demesne land (of which some account will be given below), the convent derived a much more considerable income from the rents of all tenants (whatever the legal tenure by which they held) who held their land at a money rent. The number of such tenants was likely to increase by the commutation of customary services for money payments; since, except in the particular manor or manors wherein the produce of the demesne was reserved for the actual consumption of the community, it was to the interest of a convent to lease a great part of the demesne land to tenants at a money rent and so save itself the trouble of farming the land under a bailiff[280]. In addition to these rents from agricultural land an income was sometimes derived, as has already been pointed out, from the rent of tenements in towns.

In most account rolls a careful distinction was drawn between "rents of assize" and "farms." The former were the payments due from the tenants (whether freehold or customary) who held their holdings at a money rent; these rents were collected by the different collectors of the nunnery or brought to the treasurers by the tenants themselves. "Farms" were leases, i.e. payments for land or houses which were held directly in demesne by the nunnery, but instead of being worked by a bailiff, or occupied by the household, were "farmed out" at an annual rent. A "farmer" might thus hold in farm an entire manor, and, for the payment of an annual sum to the nuns, he would have the right to the produce of the demesne and to the rents of rent-paying tenants. He might be quite a small person and hold in farm only a few acres of the demesne (in addition perhaps to an ordinary tenant's holding on the manor). He might hold the farm of a mill, or a stable, or a single house[281]. In any case he paid a rent to the nuns and made what he could out of his "farm"; while they much preferred these regular payments to the trouble of superintending the cultivation of distant lands, in an age when communication was difficult and slow.

Nevertheless the rents were not always easy to collect, for all the diligence of the bailiff and of the various rent-collectors[282]. There are some illuminating entries in the accounts of St Radegund's Cambridge. In 1449-50 the indignant treasuress debits herself with "one tenement in Walleslane lately held by John Walsheman for 6_s._ 8_d._ a year, the which John fled out of this town within the first half of this year, leaving nought behind him whereby he could be distrained save 7_d._, collected therefrom"; and in the following year she again debits herself "for part of a tenement lately held by John Webster for 12_s._ a year, whence was collected only 7_s._ for that the aforesaid John Webster did flit [literally, devolavit] by night, leaving naught behind him whereby he could be distrained." Yet these nuns seem to have been indulgent landlords; in this year the treasuress debits herself "for a tenement lately held by Richard Pyghtesley, because it was too heavily charged before, 2_s._ 3_d._, ... and for a portion of the rent owed by Stephen Brasyer on account of the poverty and need of the said Stephen, by grace of the lady Prioress this time only, 15_d._" and there are other instances of lowered rents in these accounts[283]. Other account rolls sometimes make mention of meals and small presents of money given to tenants bringing in their rents.

(2) Various manorial perquisites and grants. Besides the rents from land and houses the position of a religious community as lord of a manor gave it the right to various other financial payments. Of these the most important were the perquisites of the manorial courts. These varied very much according to the extent and number of the liberties which had been granted to any particular house. To Syon, beloved of kings, vast liberties had been granted (notably in 1447), so that the tenants upon its estates were almost entirely exempt from royal justice. The abbess and convent had

view of frankpledge, leets, lawe-days and wapentakes for all people, tenants resiant and other resiants aforesaid, in whatsoever places, by the same abbess or her successors to be limited, where to them it shall seem most expedient within the lordships, lands, rents, fees and possessions aforesaid, to be holden by the steward or other officers.

They had the assizes of bread and ale and wine and victuals and weights and measures. They had all the old traditional emoluments of justice, which lords had striven to obtain since the days before the conquest,

soc, sac, infangentheof, outfangentheof, waif, estray, treasure-trove, wreck of the sea, deodands, chattels of felons and fugitives, of outlaws, of waive, of persons condemned, of felons of themselves [suicides], escapes of felons, year day waste and estrepement and all other commodities, forfeitures and profits whatsoever.

They had the right to erect gallows, pillory and tumbrel for the punishment of malefactors. They even had

all issues and amercements, redemptions and forfeitures as well before our [the king's] heirs and successors, as before the chancellor, treasurer and barons of our exchequer, the justices and commissioners of us, our heirs or successors whomsoever, made, forfeited or adjudged ... of all the people ... in the lordships, lands, tenements, fees and possessions aforesaid[284].

In the eyes of the middle ages justice had one outstanding characteristic: it filled the pocket of whoever administered it. "Justitia magnum emolumentum est," as the phrase went. All the manifold perquisites of justice, whether administered in her own or in the royal courts, went to the abbess of Syon if any of her own tenants were concerned. It is no wonder that out of a total income of L1944. 11_s._ 5-1/4_d._ the substantial sum of L133. 0_s._ 6_d._ was derived from perquisites of courts[285].

Few houses possessed such wholesale exemption from royal justice, but all possessed their manorial courts, at which tenants paid their heriots in money or in kind as a death-duty to the lord, or their fines on entering upon land, and at which justice was done and offenders amerced (or fined as we should now call it). Most houses possessed the right to hold the assize of bread and ale and to fine alewives who overcharged or gave short measure. Some possessed the right to seize the chattels of fugitives, and the abbess of Wherwell was once involved in a law suit over this liberty, which she held in the hundred of Mestowe and which was disputed by the crown officials. One Henry Harold of Wherwell had killed his wife Isabel and fled to the church of Wherwell and the Abbess had seized his chattels to the value of L35. 4_s._ 8_d._ by the hands of her reeve[286]. A less usual privilege was that of the Abbess of Marham, who possessed the right of proving the wills of those who died within the precincts or jurisdiction of the house[287]. The courts at which these liberties were exercised were held by the steward of the nunnery, who went from manor to manor to preside at their sittings; but sometimes the head of the house herself would accompany him. Christian Bassett, the energetic Prioress of Delapre (St Albans), not content with journeying up to London for a lawsuit, went twice to preside at her court at Wing[288].

In rather a different class from grants of jurisdictional liberties were special grants of free warren, felling of wood and fairs. Monasteries which possessed lands within the bounds of a royal forest were not allowed to take game or to cut down wood there without a special licence from the crown; but such grants to exercise "free warren" (i.e. take game) and to fell wood were often granted in perpetuity, as an act of piety by the king, or for special purposes. The Abbess of Syon had free warren in all her possessions, and in 1489 it was recorded that the Abbess of Barking had free chase within the bailiwick of Hainault to hunt all beasts of the forest in season, except deer, and free chase within the forest and without to hunt hares and rabbits and fox, badger, cat and other vermin[289]. Grants of wood were more often made on special occasions; thus in 1277 the keeper of the forest of Essex was ordered to permit the Abbess of Barking and her men to fell oak-trees and oak-trunks in her demesne woods within the forest to the value of L40[290], while in 1299 the Abbess of Wilton was given leave to fell sixty oaks in her own wood within the bounds of the forest of Savernake, in order to rebuild some of her houses, which had been burnt down[291]. The grant of fairs and markets was even more common and more lucrative, for the convent profited not only from the rents of booths and from the entrance-tolls, but not infrequently from setting up a stall of its own, for the sale of spices and other produce[292]. Henry III granted the nuns of Catesby a weekly market every Monday within their manor of Catesby and a yearly fair for three days in the same place; and almost any monastic chartulary will provide other instances of such rights[293].

The majority of the special perquisites which have been described would originate in special grants from the Crown; but it must be remembered that every manorial lord could count on certain perquisites ex officio, for which no specific grant was required. For his manor provided him with more than agricultural produce on the one hand and rents and farms on the other. Through the manor court he also received certain payments due to him from all free and unfree tenants, in particular those connected with the transfer of land, the heriot and the fines already mentioned. From unfree tenants he could also claim various other dues, the mark of their status; merchet, when their daughters married off the estate, leyrwite, when they enjoyed themselves without the intermediary of that important ceremony, a fine when they wished to send their sons to school and a number of other customary payments, exacted at the manor court and varying slightly from manor to manor. Moreover the tolls from the water- or wind-mill at which villeins had to grind their corn all went to swell the purse of the lord[294]. This is not the place for a detailed description of manorial rights, which can be studied in any text-book of economic history[295]; a word must, however, be said about the mortuary system, which did not a little to enrich the medieval church.

When a peasant died the lord of the manor had often the right to claim his best animal or garment as a mortuary or heriot, and by degrees there grew up a similar claim to his second best possession on the part of the parish priest.

"It was presumed," says Mr Coulton, "that the dead man must have failed to some extent in due payment of tithes during his lifetime and that a gift of his second best possession to the Church would therefore be most salutary to his soul"[296].

From these claims, partly manorial and partly ecclesiastical, religious houses benefited very greatly, and their accounts sometimes mention mortuary payments. The Prioress of Catesby in the year 1414-15 records how her live stock was enriched by one horse, one mare and two cows coming as heriots, while she received a payment of 20_s._ for two oxen coming as heriot of Richard Sheperd[297]. In the chartulary of Marham is recorded a mortuary list of sixteen people, who died within the jurisdiction of the house, and the mortuaries vary from a sorrel horse and a book to numerous gowns and mantles[298]. The system was obviously capable of great abuse, and Mr Coulton considers that it did much to precipitate the Reformation, for the unhappy peasant resented more and more bitterly the greed of the church, which chose his hour of sorrow to wrest from him the best of his poor possessions; it must have seemed hard to him that his horse or his ox should be driven away, if he could not buy it back, to the well-stocked farm of a community which was vowed to poverty, far harder than if his lord were a layman, as free as he was himself to accumulate possessions without soiling the soul. When the parish priest followed the convent with a claim upon what was best, his despair must have grown deeper and his resentment more bitter. It was often difficult to collect these payments, just as it was often difficult to collect tithes, even when a priest was less loth to curse for them than Chaucer's poor parson. Vicars were obliged to sue their wretched parishioners in the ecclesiastical courts, and monasteries were sometimes fain to commute such payments for an annual rent, collected by the tenants[299]. But the best ecclesiastics recognised that the system was somewhat out of keeping with Christian charity. Caesarius of Heisterbach has a story of Ulrich, the good head of the monastery of Steinfeld, who one day

came to one of his granges, wherein, seeing a comely foal, he enquired of the [lay] brother whose it was or whence it came. To whom the brother answered, "such and such a man, our good and faithful friend, left it to us at his death." "By pure devotion," asked the provost, "or by legal compulsion?" "It came through his death," answered the other, "for his wife, since he was one of our serfs, offered it as a heriot." Then the provost shook his head and piously answered: "Because he was a good man and our faithful friend, therefore hast thou despoiled his wife. Render therefore her horse to this forlorn woman; for it is robbery to seize or detain other men's goods, since the horse was not thine before [the man's death]"[300].

(3) Issues of the manor. Before passing on to sources of income of a more specifically ecclesiastical character, some account must be given of the third great class of receipts which came to a convent in its capacity of landowner, to wit the "issues of the manor." Attached to almost every nunnery was its home farm, which provided the nuns with the greater part of their food[301]. A large nunnery would thus reserve for its own use several manors and granges, but usually other manors in its possession would be farmed by bailiffs, who sold the produce at market and paid in the profits to the treasuress or to one of the obedientiaries; or else a manor would be leased to a tenant. The surplus produce of the home farm, which could not be used by the nuns, was also sold. The treasuress usually entered the receipts and expenditure of the home farm in her household account and she had to keep two sets of records, the one a careful account of all the animals and agricultural produce on the farm, with details as to the use made of them; and the other (under the heading of "issues of the manor") a money record of the sums obtained from sales of live stock, wool or grain. An analysis of the produce of the home farm of Catesby (1414-5)[302] shows that the chief crops grown were wheat and barley. Of these a certain proportion was kept for seed to sow the new crops; almost all the rest of the wheat was paid in food allowances to the servants and 1 qr. 3 bushels in alms "to friars of the four orders and other poor"; most of the barley was malted, except 6 qrs. delivered to the swineherd to feed hogs; and what remained was stored in the granaries of the convent. Oats and peas were also grown and part of the crop used for seed, part for food-allowances to the servants and oatmeal for the nuns. The Prioress also kept a most meticulous account of the livestock on her farm. All were numbered and classified, cart-horses, brood-mares, colts, foals, oxen, bulls, cows, stirks (three-year old), two-year old, yearlings, calves, sheep, wethers, hogerells, lambs, hogs, boars, sows, hilts, hogsters and pigs. In each class it was carefully set down how many animals remained in stock at the end of the year and what had been done with the others. We know something of the consumption of meat by the nuns of Catesby and their servants in this year of grace 1414-5, when the old rule against the eating of meat was relaxed; and we see something of the cares of a medieval housewife in those days before root-crops were known, when the number of animals which could be kept alive during the winter was strictly limited by the amount of hay produced on the valuable meadow land. Only in summer could the convent have fresh meat; and on St Martin's day (Nov. 11) the business of killing and salting the rest of the stock for winter food began[303]. From good Dame Elizabeth Swynford's account it appears that five oxen, one stirk, thirty hogs and one boar were delivered to the larderer to be salted; in summer time, when the convent could enjoy fresh meat, five calves, fourteen sheep, ten hogs and twelve pigs were sent in to the kitchen; and twenty cows were divided between the larder and the kitchen, to provide salt and fresh beef. There is unfortunately no record of the produce of the dairy, which supplied the convent with milk, cheese, eggs and occasional chickens.

But the home-farm served the purpose of providing money as well as food. The hides of the oxen and the "wool pells" of the sheep, which had been killed for food or had fallen victim to that curse of medieval farming, the murrain, were by no means wasted. Five hides belonging to animals which had died of murrain were tanned and used for collars and other cart gear on the farm; but all the rest were sold, thirty-six of them in all. Most lucrative of all, however, was the sale of wool pells and wool, and Dame Elizabeth Swynford is very exact; eighteen wool pells, from sheep which the convent had eaten as mutton, sold before shearing for 35_s._ 10_d._, thirty-eight sold after shearing for 9_s._ 6_d._, thirty-six lamb skins for 1_s._; and 6_d._ was received "for wynter lokes sold." Moreover the convent also sold one sack and eight weight of wool at L5. 4_s._ the sack, for a total of L6. 16_s._ Altogether the "issues of the manor" amounted to the substantial sum of L24. 8_s._ 8_d._, chiefly derived from these sales of wool and wool pells and from the sale of some timber for L6. 13_s._ 4_d._[304] These details about wool are interesting, for it is well known that the monastic houses of England, especially in the northern counties, were great sheep farmers. Most accounts mention this important source of revenue and in the series of rolls kept by the treasuresses of St Michael's Stamford, it is regularly entered under the heading "Fermes, dismes, leynes et pensions," a somewhat miscellaneous classification[305]. In the thirteenth-century Pratica della Mercatura of Francesco Pergolotti there is incorporated a list of monasteries which sell wool, compiled for the use of Italian wool merchants and giving the prices per sack of the different qualities of wool at each house. The list contains a section specially devoted to nunneries, in which twenty houses are mentioned, all but two of them in Lincolnshire or Yorkshire[306]. Armed with this information the Italians would journey from nunnery to nunnery and bargain with the nuns for their wool: the whole crop would sometimes be commissioned by them in advance, sold on the backs of the sheep. The English distrusted these dark smooth-spoken foreigners; many years later the author of the Libel of English Policie charged them with dishonest practices and complained of the freedom with which they were allowed to buy in England:

In Cotteswold also they ride about, And all England, and buy withouten doubte What them list with freedome and franchise, More than we English may gitten many wise[307].

But it must have been a great day for the impoverished nuns of Yorkshire when slim Italian or stout Fleming came riding down the dales under a spring sun to bargain for their wool crop. What a bustling hither and thither there would be, and what a confabulation in the parlour between my lady Prioress and her steward and her chaplain and the stranger sitting opposite to them and speaking his reasons "ful solempnely." What a careful distinguishing of the best and the medium and the worst kind of wool, which the Italian calls buona lana and mojano lana and locchi. What a haggling over the price, which varies from nunnery to nunnery, but always allows the merchant to sell at a good profit in the markets of Flanders and Italy. What sighs of relief when the stranger trots off again, sitting high on his horse and taking with him a silken purse, or a blood-band or a pair of gloves in "courtesy" from the nuns. What blessings on the black-faced sheep, when the sorely-needed silver is locked up in the treasury chest and debts begin to look less terrible, leaking roofs less incurable, pittances less few and far between.

(4) Miscellaneous payments. A last source of temporal revenue consisted in the sums paid for board and lodging by visitors, regular boarders and schoolchildren. Though such visitors were frowned at by bishops as subversive of discipline, the nuns welcomed their contributions to the lean income of the convent, and in most nunnery accounts payments by boarders will be found among other miscellaneous receipts.

(5) Spiritualities. In the revenues which have hitherto been considered, the monastic rent-rolls differed in no way from those of any lay owner of land. The source of revenue now to be distinguished was more specifically ecclesiastical. All monasteries derived a more or less large income from certain grants made to them in their capacity as religious houses. Most important of these was the appropriation of benefices to their use. When a church was appropriated to a monastery, the monastery was usually supposed to put in a vicar at a fixed stipend to serve the parish, and the great tithes (which would otherwise have supported a rector) were taken by the corporation. Sometimes half a church was so appropriated and half the tithes were taken. The practice of appropriating churches was widespread; not only the king and other lay patrons, but also the bishops used this means of enriching religious bodies and the favourite petition of an impecunious convent was for permission to appropriate a church[308]. Over and over again the gift of the advowson of a church to a monastery is followed by appropriation[309]. The permission of the bishop of the diocese and of the pope was necessary for the transaction, but it seems rarely to have been refused; and

it has been calculated that at least a third part of the tithes of the richest benefices in England were appropriated either in part or wholly to religious and secular bodies, such as colleges, military orders, lay hospitals, guilds, convents; even deans, cantors, treasurers and chancellors of cathedral bodies were also largely endowed with rectorial tithes[310].

The practice of appropriation became a very serious abuse, for not all monasteries were conscientious in performing their duties to the parishes from which they derived such a large income, and ignorant and underpaid vicars often enough left their sheep encumbered in the mire, or swelled with their misery and discontent the democratic revolution known by the too narrow name of the Peasants' Revolt[311]. Moreover there is no doubt that sometimes the monks and nuns neglected even the obvious duty of putting in a vicar, and the hungry sheep looked up and were not fed. The Valor Ecclesiasticus throws an interesting light on this subject. The nuns of Elstow Abbey held no less than eleven rectories, from which they derived L157. 6_s._ 8_d._, but they paid stipends to four vicars only, and the total of the four was L6. 6_s._ 8_d._[312] The nuns of Westwood received L12. 12_s._ 10_d._ from two rectories and paid to a deacon in one of them 11_s._ 4_d._[313] The Minoresses without Aldgate held four rectories; from that of Potton (Beds.) they received L16. 6_s._ 8_d._ and paid the vicar L2; from that of Kessingland, Suffolk, L9 and paid the vicar L2. 4_s._ 4_d._[314] Another very common practice which cannot have conduced to the welfare of the parishioners was that of farming out the proceeds of appropriated churches, just as manors were farmed out. The farmer paid the nuns a lump sum annually and took the proceeds of the tithes. The purpose of such an arrangement was convenience, since it saved the convent the trouble of collecting the revenues and tithes. It was open to objection from all points of view; for on the one hand the nuns might, and often did, make bad bargains, and on the other they were still less likely to care for the spiritual welfare of the unfortunate parishioners, whose souls were to all intents and purposes farmed out with their tithes; though the payment of a vicar was sometimes made by the nuns or stipulated for in the agreement with the farmer. The Valor Ecclesiasticus gives the total spiritual revenue of the 84 nunneries holding spiritualities as L2705. 17_s._ 5_d._ and of this sum spiritualities to the value of L1075. 0_s._ 6_d._, belonging to 33 houses were entered as being at farm[315].

Account rolls often throw a flood of light upon the income derived from appropriated churches. To the nuns of St Michael's Stamford had been assigned by various abbots of Peterborough the churches of St Martin, St Clement, All Souls, St Andrew and Thurlby, and in the reign of Henry II two pious ladies gave them the moieties of the church of Corby and chapel of Upton[316]. Moreover in 1354, after the little nunnery of Wothorpe had been ruined by the Black Death, all its possessions were handed over to St Michael's and included the appropriation of the church of Wothorpe; the bishop stipulated that the proceeds of the priory with the rectory should be applied to the support of the infirmary and kitchen of St Michael's and that the nuns should keep a chaplain to serve the parish church of Wothorpe[317]. Corby and Thurlby were afterwards farmed out by the nuns[318] and in 1377-8 they brought in L19 and L20 respectively, while the nuns got L26. 0_s._ 8_d._ from "the church of All Saints beyond the water," L1. 13_s._ 4_d._ from the parson of Cottesmore and a pension of 6_s._ 8_d._ from the church of St Martin. They paid the vicar of Wothorpe a stipend of L2 a year[319]. Over half their income was usually derived from "farms, tithes and pensions," i.e. from ecclesiastical sources of revenue.

It was also very common to make grants of tithes out of piety to a monastery, even when a grant of the advowson of the church was not made. A lord would make over to it the tithes of wheat, or a portion of the tithes, in certain parishes, or perhaps the tithes of his own demesne land. Sometimes the rector of a parish would pay the monks or nuns an annual rent in commutation of their tithes; sometimes he would dispute their claim and the tedious altercation would drag on for years, ending perhaps in the expense of a law-suit[320]. Besides advowsons and tithes various other pensions and payments were bestowed upon religious houses by benefactors, who would leave an annual pension to a monastery as a charge upon a particular piece of land, or church, or upon another monastery[321].

Another "spiritual" source of revenue consisted in alms and gifts given to the nuns as a work of piety. Sometimes a nunnery possessed a famous relic, and the faithful who visited it showed their devotion by leaving a gift at the shrine. The Valor sometimes gives very interesting information about these cherished possessions, described under the unkind heading Superstitio. The Yorkshire nuns possessed among them a great variety of relics, some of them having the most incongruous virtues. At Sinningthwaite was to be found the arm of St Margaret and the tunic of St Bernard "believed to be good for women lying in"[322], at Arden was an image of St Bride, to which women made offerings for cows that had strayed or were ill. The nuns of Arthington had a girdle of the Virgin and the nuns of St Clement's York and Basedale both had some of her milk; at St Clement's pilgrimages were made to the obscure but popular St Syth[323]. In other parts of the country it was the same. St Edmund's altar in the conventual church of Catesby was a place of pilgrimage, for he had bequeathed his pall and a silver tablet to his sister Margaret Rich, prioress there[324]; and in 1400 Boniface IX granted an indult to the Abbess of Barking to have mass and the other divine offices celebrated in an oratory called "Rodlofte" (rood-loft), in which was preserved a cross to which many people resorted[325]. The nuns of St Michael's Stamford not infrequently record sums received from a pardon held at one of their churches, and almost every year they received sums of money in exchange for their prayers for the souls of the dead. "Almes et aventures," souls and chance payments, was a regular heading in their account roll, and the name of the person for whose soul they were to pray was entered opposite the money received. Miscellaneous alms from the faithful were always a source of revenue, though necessarily a fluctuating source[326].

Such were the chief sources from which a medieval nunnery derived its income. We must now consider the chief expenses which the nuns had to meet out of that income. It has already been shown that the total income of a nunnery was paid into the hands of the treasuress or treasuresses, save when the office of treasuress was filled by the head of the house, or when a male custos was appointed by the bishop to undertake the business. It has also been shown that the treasuress paid out certain sums to the chief obedientiaries (notably to the cellaress), to whose use certain sources of income were indeed sometimes earmarked, and that these obedientiaries kept their separate accounts. The majority of nunnery accounts which have survived are, however, treasuresses' accounts; that is to say they represent the general balance sheet at the end of the year, including all the chief items of income and expenditure. The different houses adopt, as is natural, different methods of classifying their expenses[327]. The great abbey of Romsey classifies thus: (1) The Convent, including sums for clothing, for the kitchen expenses and for pittances, amounting in all to L105. 17_s._ 10_d._ (2) The Abbess, who kept her separate household in state; this includes provisions for herself and for her household and divers of their expenses, a sum of L8. 12_s._ in gifts, a sum in liveries for the household and spices for the guest-house and a sum in servants' wages, amounting to L108. 17_s._ in all. (3) Divers outside expenses, including repairs of houses belonging to the Romsey mills, a sum for legal pleas, another for annuities to the convent and to the king's clerks, who had stalls in the abbey, over L40 in royal taxes and L1. 14_s._ 8_d._ in procurations, amounting to L108 in all. (4) Miscellaneous expenses include L8. 19_s._ 4_d._ in alms to the poor, L6. 13_s._ 4_d._ in wine for nobles visiting the abbess, a sum for mending broken crockery, a sum for shoeing the horses of the Abbess' household, and in horse-hire and expenses of men riding on her business, 14_s._ in oblations of the Abbess and her household and L10 in gift to Henry Bishop of Winchester on his return from the Holy Land. (5) Repairs and other expenses at six manors belonging to this wealthy house, amounting to L77. 2_s._ 6-1/2_d._ The total expenses of the abbey this year (1412) came to L431. 18_s._ 8_d._, against a revenue of L404. 6_s._ 1_d._, drawn from six manors and including rents, the commutation fees for villein services, the sale of wool, corn and other stores and the perquisites of the courts. The deficit is characteristic of nunneries[328].

An interesting picture of many sides of monastic life is given by a general analysis of the chief classes of expenditure usually mentioned in account rolls. They may be classified as follows: (1) internal expenses of the convent, (2) divers miscellaneous expenses connected with external business, (3) repairs, (4) the expenses of the home farm and (5) the wage-sheet.

(1) The internal expenses of the convent. The details of this expenditure are sometimes not given very fully, because they were set forth at length in the accounts of the cellaress and chambress; but a certain amount of food and of household goods and clothes was bought directly by the treasuress and occasionally the office of cellaress and treasuress was doubled by the same nun, whose account gives more detail. Expenditure on clothing appears in one of two forms, either as dress-allowances paid annually to the nuns[329], or as payments for the purchase of linen and cloth and for the hiring of work-people to spin and weave and make up the clothes[330]. Expenditure on food is usually concerned with the purchase of fish and of spices, the only important foods which could not be produced by the home farm.

Among other internal expenses are the costs of the guest-house and the alms, in money and in kind, which were given to the poor. Account rolls sometimes throw a side light on the fare provided for visitors: for instance the treasuress of St Radegund's, Cambridge, enters upon her roll in 1449-50 the following items under the heading Providencia Hospicii:

And paid to William Rogger, for beef, pork, mutton and veal bought for the guest house, by the hand of John Grauntyer, 24_s._ 8_d._ And for bread, beer, beef, pork, mutton, veal, sucking pigs, capons, chickens, eggs, butter and fresh and salt fish, bought from day to day for the guest house during the period of the account, as appears more fully set out in detail, in a paper book examined for this account, L11. 7_s._ 4-1/2_d._ And for one cow bought of Thomas Carrawey for the guest house vj s viij d. Total: L13. 8_s._ 8-1/2_d._[331]

In this year the total receipts were L77. 8_s._ 6-1/2_d._ and the expenditure L72. 6_s._ 4-3/4_d._, so that quite a large proportion of the nuns' income was spent on hospitality. On the other hand the food was no doubt partly consumed by these "divers noble persons," who paid the convent L8. 14_s._ 4_d._ this year for their board and lodging. It is a great pity that the separate guest-house account book referred to has not survived. At St Michael's Stamford the roll for 15-16 Richard II contains a payment of 26_s._ 10_d._ "for the expenses of guests for the whole year," and 6_s._ 8_d._ "for wine for the guests throughout the year"[332]; this is a very small amount out of a total expenditure of L116. 15_s._ 4-1/2_d._ and it seems likely that the greater part of the food used for guests was not accounted for apart from the convent food.

The expenditure of nuns on alms is interesting, since almsgiving to the poor was one of the functions enjoined upon them by their rule; and many houses held a part of their property on condition that they should distribute certain alms. Some information as to these compulsory alms, though not of course as to the voluntary almsgiving of the nuns, is given in the Valor Ecclesiasticus. A few entries may be taken at random. St Sepulchre's, Canterbury, paid 6_s._ 8_d._ for one quarter of wheat to be given for the soul of William Calwell, their founder, the Thursday next before Easter[333]. Dartford was allowed L5. 12_s._ 8_d._ for alms given twice a week to thirteen poor people[334]; Haliwell distributed 12_s._ 8_d._ in alms to poor folk every Christmas day in memory of a Bishop of Lincoln[335]. Nuneaton was allowed "for certain quarters of corn given weekly to the poor and sick at the gate of the monastery at 12_d._ a week, by order of the foundress, L2. 12_s._ 0_d._; for certain alms on Maundy Thursday in money, bread, wine, beer and eels by the foundation, to poor and sick within the monastery, L2. 5_s._ 4_d._"[336] Polesworth gave "on Maundy Thursday at the washing of the feet of poor persons, in drink and victuals, by the foundation L1. 6_s._ 0_d._"[337] A chartulary of the great Abbey of Lacock, drawn up at the close of the thirteenth century, contains an interesting list of alms payable to the poor and pittances to the nuns themselves on certain feasts and anniversaries. It runs:

We ought to feed on All Souls' day as many poor as there are ladies, to each poor person a dry loaf and as a relish two herrings or a slice of cheese, and the convent the same day shall have two courses. On the anniversary of the foundress (24 Aug. 1261) 100 poor each shall have a wheaten loaf and two herrings, be it a flesh-day or not, and the convent shall have to eat simnels and wine and three courses and two at supper. On the anniversary of her father (17 April 1196) each year thirteen poor shall be fed. On the anniversary of her husband thirteen poor shall be fed, and the convent shall have half a mark for a pittance. On the anniversary of Sir Nicholas Hedinton they should distribute to the poor 8_s._ and 4_d._, or corn amounting to as much money, i.e. wheat, barley and beans, and the convent half a mark for a pittance. The day of the burial of a lady of the convent 100 poor, to each a mite or a dry loaf.... The day of the Last Supper, after the Maundy, they shall give to each poor person a loaf of the weight of the convent loaf, and of the dough of full bread, and half a gallon of beer and two herrings, and half a bushel of beans for soup[338].

Account rolls sometimes contain references to food or money distributed to the poor on the great almsgiving day of Maundy Thursday, or on special feast days. The nuns of St Michael's Stamford regularly bought herrings to be given to the poor on Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, St Laurence's day, St Michael's day and St Andrew's day. The nuns of St Radegund's, Cambridge, in 1450-1 distributed 2_s._ 1_d._ among the poor on Maundy Thursday and gave 10_d._ "to certain poor persons lately labouring in the wars of the lord king"[339]. The Prioress of St Mary de Pre, St Albans, has an item "paid in expenses for straungers, pore men lasours, tennents and fermours for brede and ale and other vitaills xxxvj_s_ viij_d_"[340]. It is interesting to note that nunneries are not infrequently found giving alms in money or kind to the mendicant friars. The Prioress of Catesby gave away 1 qr. 3 bushels of wheat "to brethren of the four orders and other poor" in 1414-5[341]. The Oxford friary received from Godstow in memory of the soul of one Roger Whittell fourteen loaves every fortnight and 3_s._ 4_d._ in money and one peck of oatmeal and one of peas in Lent. The Friars Minor of Cambridge were sometimes sent a pig by the Abbess of Denny[342]. It will be seen in a later chapter that the poor Yorkshire nunneries of St Clement's York and Moxby were considerably burdened by the obligation to pay 14 loaves weekly to the friars of York[343]. In general, however, it is difficult to form any just estimate as to how much almsgiving was really done by the nuns. There is no evidence as to whether they daily gave away to the poor, as their rule demanded, the fragments left over from their own meals; for such almsgiving would be entered neither in account rolls nor in chartularies and surveys dealing with endowments earmarked for charity.

Another class of gifts which deserves some notice consists of gratuities to friends, well-wishers or dependents of the house, for benefits solicited or received. No one in the middle ages was too dignified to receive a tip. The nuns of St Michael's, Stamford, regularly give what they euphemistically term "gifts" or "courtesies" to a large number of persons, ranging from their own servants at Christmas to men of law, engaged in the various suits in which they were involved. To the high and mighty they present wine, or a capon, or money discreetly jingling in the depths of a silken purse. To the lowly they present a plain unvarnished tip. The nuns of St Radegund's, Cambridge, pay 12_d._ "for a crane bought and given to the chancellor of the university of Cambridge, for his good friendship in divers of my lady's affairs in the interest of the convent"; and "the four waits of the Mayor of Cambridge" receive a Christmas box of 2_s._ 3_d._ "for their services to the lady Prioress and convent." Dono Data is a regular heading in their accounts, and in 1450-1 there is a long list of small gifts to dependents, ranging from 1_d._ to 10_d._, and a sum of 2_s._ for linen garments bought for gifts at Christmas[344]. Similarly the cellaress of Syon in 1536-7 gave her servants at Christmas a reward of 20_s._ "with their aprons"[345]. Whether to ensure that a lawsuit should go in favour of the convent, or merely to reward faithful service or to celebrate a feast, such payments were well laid out and no careful housekeeper could afford to neglect them.

(2) Divers expenses include payments for various fines, amercements and legal expenses and also for the numerous journeys undertaken by the prioress or by their servants on convent business. The legal expenses which fell upon the nuns of St Michael's, Stamford, ranged from a big suit in London and various cases over disputed tithes at the court of the bishop of Lincoln, to divers small amercements, when the convent pigs "trespassed in Castle meadow"[346]. The payments for journeys often give a vivid picture of nuns inspecting their manors and visiting their bishop[347]. Under this heading is also included a payment for ink and parchment and for the fee of the clerk who wrote out the account.

(3) Repairs were a very serious item in the balance sheet of every monastic house, and in spite of the amount of money, which account rolls show to have been spent upon them, visitation reports have much to say about crumbling walls and leaking roofs. It was seldom that a year passed without several visits from the plumbers, the slaters and the thatchers, to the precincts of a nunnery; and once arrived they were not easy to dislodge. If perchance the nunnery buildings themselves stood firm, then the houses of the tenants would be falling about their ears; and once more the distracted treasuress must summon workmen. Usually the nuns purchased the materials used for repairs and hired the labour separately, and the workers were sometimes fed in the nunnery kitchen; for it was customary at this time to include board with the wages of many hired workmen.

The accounts of St Radegund's, Cambridge, in 1449-50 will serve as an example of the expenditure under this heading[348]. It was a heavy year, for the nuns were having two tenements built in "Nunneslane" adjoining their house, and the accounts give an interesting picture of the building of a little medieval house of clay and wattle, with stone foundations, whitewashed walls and thatched roof. First of all Henry Denesson, carpenter, a most important person, was hired to set up all the woodwork at a wage of 23_s._ 4_d._ for the whole piece of work; he had an assistant John Cokke, who was paid 14_d._ for ten days' work; Simon Maydewell was kept hard at work sawing timber for his use for ten days at 14_d._ and over a cart load and a half of "splentes" (small pieces of wood laid horizontally in a stud wall) were purchased at a cost of 6_s._ 2_d._ Henry and John spent ten days setting up the framework of the two cottages, but they were not the only workers. The "gruncill" (or beam laid along the ground for the rest to stand on) had to be laid firmly on a stone foundation; the walls had to be filled between the beams with clay, strengthened with a mixture of reeds and sedge and bound with hemp nailed firmly to the beams. The account tells us all about these operations:

and in hemp with nails bought for binding the walls 16_d._, and in stone bought from Thomas Janes of Hynton to support the gruncill 6_s._ 8_d._, and in one measure of quicklime bought for the same work 3_s._, and in six cartloads of clay bought of Richard Poket of Barnwell 18_d._, and in the hire of Geoffrey Sconyng and William Brann, to lay the gruncill of the aforesaid tenements and to daub the walls thereof (i.e. to make them of clay), for the whole work 17_s._ 3_d._ And in reeds bought of John Bere, "reder," for the aforesaid tenements 2_s._ 4_d._, and in "1000 de les segh" (sedge) for the same work 5_s._ And in 22 bunches of wattles 22_d._, and in boards bought at the fair of St John the Baptist to make the door and windows 2_s._ 10_d._, and in 1000 nails for the said work, together with 1000 more nails bought afterwards 2_s._ 8-1/2_d._

Finally the houses had to be roofed with a thatch of straw and a fresh set of workmen were called in:

and for the hire of John Scot, thatcher, hired to roof with straw the two aforesaid tenements, for 12 days, taking 4_d._ a day, at the board of the Lady (Prioress) 4_s._ And for the hire of Thomas Clerk for 8-1/2 days and of Nicholaus Burnefygge for 10 days, carrying straw and serving the said thatcher 3_s._ 1_d._; and in the hire of Katherine Rolf for the same work (women often acted as thatchers' assistants) for 12 days at 1-1/2_d._ a day, 18_d._

And behold two very nice little cottages.

But let not the ignorant suppose that this completed the expenditure of the nuns on building and repairs. Henry Denesson, the indispensable, soon had to be hired again to set up some woodwork in a tenement in Precherch Street, and to build a gable there. A kitchen had to be built next to these tenements, and the business of hiring carpenters, daubers and thatchers was repeated; John Scot and John Cokke once more scaled the roofs. Then a house in Nun's Lane was burnt and sedge had to be bought to thatch it. Then three labourers had to be hired for four days to mend the roofs of the hall, kitchen and other parts of the nunnery itself, taking 5_d._ a day and their board. Then the roofs of the frater and the granary began to leak and the same labourers had to be hired for four more days. Then, just as the treasuress thought that she had got rid of the ubiquitous Henry Denesson for good, back he had to be called with a servant to help him, to set up the falling granary again. Then a lock had to be made for the guests' kitchen and for three other rooms in the nunnery; and when John Egate, tiler, and John Tommesson, tenants of the nuns, got wind that locks were being made, they must needs have some for their tenements. Then a defect in the church had to be repaired by John Corry and a cover made for the font. There was more purchase of reeds and sedge, boards and "300 nails (12_d._) and 100 nails (2_d._) bought at Stourbridge Fair" for 14_d._ Last came the inevitable plumber:

And for a certain plumber hired to mend a gutter between the tenement wherein Walter Ferror dwells and a tenement of the Prior of Barnwell, with lead found by the said Prior, together with the mending of a defect in the church of St Radegund 14_d._ And in the hire of the aforesaid plumber to mend a lead pipe extending from the font to the copper in the brewhouse, together with the solder of the said plumber 8_d._

In all the cost of repairs and buildings came to L8. 3_s._ 7_d._ out of a total expenditure of L72. 6_s._ 4-3/4_d._

(4) Expenses of the home farm. The home farm was an essential feature of manorial economy and particularly so when the lord of the manor was a community. The nuns expected to draw the greater part of their food from the farm; livestock, grain and dairy all had to be superintended. A student of these account rolls may see unrolled before him all the different operations of the year, the autumn ploughing and sowing, the spring ploughing and sowing, the hay crop mown in June and the strenuous labours of the harvest. He may, if he will, know how many sheep the shepherd led to pasture and how many oxen the oxherd drove home in the evening, for the inventory on the back of an account roll enumerates minutely all the stock. There is something homely and familiar in lists such as the tale of cattle owned by the nuns of Sheppey at the Dissolution:

v contre oxen and iij western oxen fatt, ... xviij leane contre oxen workers, xij leane contre sterys of ij or iij yere age, xxviij yeryngs, xxxviii kene and heifors ... xxvi cattle of thys yere, an horse, j olde baye, a dunne, a whyte and an amblelyng grey, vj geldings and horse for the plow and harowe, with v mares, xliij hogges of dyvers sorts, in wethers and lammys cccc{xxx}, ... and in beryng ewes vij{c}, ... in twelvemonthyngs, ewes and wethers vi{c}xxxv ... in lambys at this present daye v{c}lx[349].

How these lean country oxen, the "one old bay, a dun, a white and an ambling grey," bring the quiet English landscape before the reader's eyes. Time is as nothing; and the ploughman trudging over the brown furrows, the slow, warm beasts, breathing heavily in the darkness of their byre, are little changed from what they were five hundred years ago--save that our beasts to-day are larger and fatter, thanks to turnips and Mr Bakewell. Kingdoms rise and fall, but the seasons never alter, and the farm servant, conning these old accounts, would find nothing in them but the life he knew:

This is the year's round he must go To make and then to win the seed: In winter to sow and in March to hoe Michaelmas plowing, Epiphany sheep; Come June there is the grass to mow, At Lammas all the vill must reap. From dawn till dusk, from Easter till Lent Here are the laws that he must keep: Out and home goes he, back-bent, Heavy, patient, slow as of old Father, granfer, ancestor went O'er Sussex weald and Yorkshire wold. O what see you from your gray hill? The sun is low, the air all gold, Warm lies the slumbrous land and still. I see the river with deep and shallow, I see the ford, I hear the mill; I see the cattle upon the fallow; And there the manor half in trees, And there the church and the acre hallow Where lie your dead in their feretories.... I see the yews and the thatch between The smoke that tells of cottage and hearth, And all as it has ever been From the beginning of this old earth[350].

The farm labourer to-day would well understand all these items of expenditure, which the monastic treasuress laboriously enters in her account. He would understand that heavy section headed "Repair of Carts and Ploughs." He would understand the purchases of grain for seed, or for the food of livestock, of a cow here, a couple of oxen there, of whip-cord and horse-collars, traces and sack-cloth and bran for a sick horse. Farm expenses are always the same. The items which throw light on sheep-farming are very interesting, in view of the good income which monastic houses in pastoral districts made by the sale of their wool. The Prioress of Catesby's account for 1414-5 notes:

In expences about washing and shearing of sheep v s vj d. In ale bought for caudles ij s. In pitchers viij d. In ale about the carriage of peas to the sheepcote iv d ob. In a tressel bought for new milk viij d. In nails for a door there iv d ob. In thatching the sheepcote viij d. In amending walls about the sheepcote ix d;

and in her inventory of stock she accounts for

118 sheep received of stock, whereof there was delivered to the kitchen after shearing by tally 14, in murrain before shearing 12, and there remains 101; and for 5 wethers of stock and 2 purchased, whereof in murrain before shearing 3, and there remains 4; and for 144 lambs of issues of all ewes, whereof in murrain 23; and there remains 121[351].

The nuns of Gracedieu in the same spring had a flock of 103 ewes and 52 lambs; and there is mention in their accounts of the sale of 30 stone of wool to a neighbour[351]; and the nuns of Sheppey, as the inventory quoted above bears witness, had a very large flock indeed.

Some of the most interesting entries in the accounts are the payments for extra labour at busy seasons, to weed corn, make hay, shear sheep, thresh and winnow. The busiest season of all, the climax of the farmer's year, was harvest time; and most monastic accounts give it a separate heading. The nuns of St Michael's, Stamford, year after year record the date "when we began to reap" and the payments to reapers and cockers for the first four or five weeks and to carters for the fortnight afterwards. Extra workers, both men and women, came in from among the cottagers of the manor and of neighbouring manors; in some parts of the country migrant harvesters came, as they do to-day, from distant uplands to help on the farms of the rich cornland. To oversee them a special reap-reeve was hired at a higher rate (the nuns of St Michael's paid him 13_s._ 8_d._ in 1378); gloves were given to the reapers to protect them from thistles[352]; special tithers were hired to set aside the sheaves due to the convent as tithes (the convent paid "to one tither of Wothorpe," an appropriated church, "10_s._, and to two of our tithers 13_s._ 4_d._"). The honest Tusser sets out the usage in jingling rhyme:

Grant haruest lord more by a penie or twoo to call on his fellowes the better to doo: Giue gloues to thy reapers, a larges to crie, and dailie to loiterers haue a good eie.

Reape wel, scatter not, gather cleane that is shorne, binde faste, shock apace, haue an eie to thy corne. Lode safe, carrie home, follow time being faire, goue iust in the barne, it is out of despaire.

Tithe dulie and trulie, with hartie good will that God and his blessing may dwell with thee still: Though Parson neglecteth his dutie for this, thank thou thy Lord God, and giue erie man his[353].

Usually the workers got their board during harvest and very well they fared. The careful treasuresses of St Michael's get in beef and mutton and fish for them, to say nothing of eggs and bread and oatmeal and foaming jugs of beer. Porringers and platters have to be laid in for them to feed from; and since they work until the sun goes down, candles must be bought to light the board in the summer dusk. At the end of all, when the last sheaf was carried to the barn and the last gleaner had left the fields, the nuns entertained their harvesters to a mighty feast.

It was a time for hard work and for good fellowship. Says Tusser:

In haruest time, haruest folke, seruants and all, should make all togither good cheere in the hall: And fill out the black boule of bleith to their song, and let them be merie all haruest time long.

Once ended thy haruest let none be begilde, please such as did helpe thee, man, woman and childe. Thus dooing, with alway such helpe as they can, those winnest the praise of the labouring man[354].

The final feast was associated with the custom of giving a goose to all who had not overturned a load in carrying during harvest, and the nuns of St Michael's always enter it in their accounts as "the expenses of the sickle goose" or harvest goose.

For all this good feasting, yet art thou not loose till ploughman thou giuest his haruest home goose. Though goose go in stubble, I passe not for that, let goose haue a goose, be she leane, be she fat[355].

An echo of old English gaiety sounds very pleasantly through these harvest expenses.

(5) The wages sheet. The last set of expenses which the monastic housewife entered upon her roll was the wages sheet of the household, the payments for the year, or for a shorter period, of all her male and female dependents, together with the cost of their livery and of their allowance of "mixture," when the convent gave them these. We saw in the last chapter that the nuns were the centre of a small community of farm and household servants, ranging from the reverend chaplains and dignified bailiff through all grades of standing and usefulness, down to the smallest kitchen-maid and the gardener's boy.

Such is the tale of the account rolls. It may be objected by some that this talk of tenement-building, and livestock, ploughshares and harvest-home has little to do with monastic life, since it is but the common routine of every manor. But this is the very reason for describing it. The nunneries of England were firmly founded on the soil and the nuns were housewives and ladies of the manor, as were their sisters in the world. This homely business was half their lives; they knew the kine in the byre and the corn in the granary, as well as the service-books upon their stalls. The sound of their singing went up to heaven mingled with the shout of the ploughmen in the field and the clatter of churns in the dairy. When a prioress' negligence lets the sheepfold fall into disrepair, so that the young lambs die of the damp, it is made a charge against her to the bishop, together with more spiritual crimes. The routine of the farm goes on side by side with the routine of the chapel. These account rolls give us the material basis for the complicated structure of monastic life. This is how nuns won their livelihood; this is how they spent it.

IV. MONASTIC HOUSEWIVES

Some respit to husbands the weather may send, But huswiues affaires haue neuer an end. TUSSER, Fiue Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie (1573).

Every monastic house may be considered from two points of view, as a religious and as a social unit. From the religious point of view it is a house of prayer, its centre is the church, its raison d'etre the daily round of offices. From the social point of view it is a community of human beings, who require to be fed and clothed; it is often a landowner on a large scale; it maintains a more or less elaborate household of servants and dependents; it runs a home farm; it buys and sells and keeps accounts. The nun must perforce combine the functions of Martha and of Mary; she is no less a housewife than is the lady of the manor, her neighbour. The monastic routine of bed and board did not work without much careful organisation; and it is worth while to study the method by which this organisation was carried out.

The daily business of a monastery was in the hands of a number of officials, chosen from among the older and more experienced of the inmates and known as obedientiaries. These obedientiaries, as Mr C. T. Flower has pointed out in a useful article[356], fall into two classes: (1) executive officials, charged with the general government of a house, such as the abbess, prioress, subprioress and treasuress, and (2) nuns charged with particular functions, such as the chantress, sacrist, fratress, infirmaress, mistress of the novices, chambress and cellaress. The number of obedientiaries differed with the size of the house. In large houses the work had naturally to be divided among a large number of officials and those whose offices were heaviest had assistants to help them. A list of the twenty-six nuns of Romsey in 1502, for instance, distinguishes besides the abbess, a prioress, subprioress, four chantresses, an almoness, cellaress, sacrist and four subsacrists, kitcheness, fratress, infirmaress and mistress of the school of novices[357]. But in a small house there was less need of differentiation, and though complaint is sometimes made of the doubling of offices (perhaps from jealousy or a desire to participate in the doubtful sweets of office), one nun must often have performed many functions. It is common, for instance, to find the head of the house acting as treasuress, a practice which undoubtedly had its dangers.

The following were the most important obedientiaries, whose duties are distinguished in the larger convents. (1) The Treasuress, or more often two treasuresses. Her duty was to receive all the money paid, from whatever source, to the house and to superintend disbursements; she had the general management of business and held the same position as a college bursar to-day. (2) The Chantress or Precentrix had the management of the church services, trained the novices in singing and usually looked after the library. (3) The Sacrist had the care of the church fabric, with the plate, vestments and altar cloths and of the lighting of the whole house, for which she had to buy the wax and tallow and wicks and hire the candle-makers. (4) The Fratress had charge of the frater or refectory, kept the chairs and tables in repair, purchased the cloths and dishes, superintended the laying of meals and kept the lavatory clean. (5) The Almoness had charge of the almsgiving. (6) The Chambress ordained everything to do with the wardrobe of the nuns; the Additions to the Rules of Syon thus describe her work:

The Chaumbress schal haue al the clothes in her warde, that perteyne to the bodyly araymente of sustres and brethern, nyghte and day, in ther celles and fermery, as wel of lynnen as of wollen; schapynge, sewynge, makyng, repayryng and kepyng them from wormes, schakyng them by the help of certayne sustres depute to her, that they be not deuoured and consumed of moughtes. So that sche schal puruey for canuas for bedyng, fryses, blankettes, schetes, bolsters, pelowes, couerlites, cuschens, basens, stamens, rewle cotes, cowles, mantelles, wymples, veyles, crounes, pynnes, cappes, nyght kerchyfes, pylches, mantel furres, cuffes, gloues, hoses, schoes, botes, soles, sokkes, mugdors, gyrdelles, purses, knyues, laces, poyntes, nedelles, threde, wasching bolles and sope and for al suche other necessaryes after the disposicion of the abbes, whiche in no wyse schal be ouer curyous, but playne and homly, witheoute weuynge of any straunge colours of sylke, golde, or syluer, hauynge al thynge of honeste and profyte, and nothyng of vanyte, after the rewle; ther knyues unpoynted and purses beyng double of lynnen clothe and not of sylke[358].

(7) The Cellaress looked after the food of the house and the domestic servants, and usually superintended the management of the home farm. It was her business to lay in all stores, obtaining some from the home farm and some by purchase in the village market, or at periodical fairs. She had to order the meals, to engage and dismiss servants and to see to all repairs. As one writer very well says, her "manifold duties appear to have been a combination of those belonging to the offices of steward, butler and farmer's wife"[359]. The Rules of Syon again deserves quotation:

The Celeres schal puruey for mete and drynke for seke and hole, and for mete and drynke, clothe and wages, for seruantes of householde outwarde, and sche shall haue all the vessel and stuffe of housholde under her kepynge and rewle, kepynge it klene, hole and honeste. So that whan sche receyueth newe, sche moste restore the olde to the abbes. Ordenyng for alle necessaryes longynge to al houses of offices concernyng the bodyly fode of man, in the bakhows, brewhows, kychen, buttry, pantry, celer, freytour, fermery, parlour and suche other, bothe outewarde and inwarde, for straungers and dwellers, attendyng diligently that the napery and al other thynge in her office be honest, profitable and plesaunte to al, after her power, as sche is commaunded by her souereyne[360].

A very detailed set of instructions how to cater for a large abbey is to be found in a Barking document called the Charthe longynge to the office of the Celeresse of the Monasterye of Barkinge[361]. (8) The Kitcheness superintended the kitchen, under the direction of the cellaress. (9) The Infirmaress had charge of the sick in the infirmary; the author of the Additions to the Rules of Syon, a person of all too vivid imagination, charges her often to

chaunge ther beddes and clothes, geue them medycynes, ley to ther plastres and mynyster to them mete and drynke, fyre and water and al other necessaryes, nyghte and day, as nede requyrethe, after counsel of the phisicians, ... not squames to wasche them, and wype them, nor auoyde them, not angry nor hasty, or unpacient thof one haue the vomet, another the fluxe, another the frensy, which nowe syngethe, now wel apayde, ffor ther be some sekenesses vexynge the seke so gretly and prouokynge them to ire, that the mater drawen up to the brayne alyenthe the mendes[362].

(10) The Mistress of the Novices acted as schoolmistress to the novices, teaching them all that they had to learn and superintending their general behaviour.

Certain of these obedientiaries, more especially the cellaress, chambress and sacrist, had the control and expenditure of part of the convent's income, because their departments involved a certain number of purchases; indeed while the treasuress acted as bursar, the housekeeping of the convent was in the hands of the cellaress and chambress. Every well organised nunnery therefore divided up its revenues, allocating so much to the church, so much to clothing, so much to food, etc. Rules for the disposition of the income of a house were sometimes drawn up by a more than usually thrifty treasuress for the guidance of her successors, and kept in the register or chartulary of the nunnery. The Register of Crabhouse Priory contains one such document written (in the oddest French of Stratford-atte-Bowe) during the second half of the fourteenth century:

"The wise men of religion who have possessions," says this careful dame, "consider according to the amount of their goods how much they can spend each year and according to the sum of their income they ordain to divers necessities their portions in due measure. And in order that when the time comes the convent should not fail to have what is necessary according to the sum of our goods, we have ordained their portions to divers necessary things. To wit, for bread and beer, all the produce of our lands and tenements in Tilney and all the produce of our half church of St Peter in Wiggenhall, and, if it be necessary, all the produce of our land in Gyldenegore. For meat and fish and for herrings and for feri and asser[363] and for cloves is set aside all the produce of our houses and rents in Lynn and in North Lynn and in Gaywood. For clothing and shoes all the produce of our meadow in Setchy, ... and the remnant of the land in Setchy and in West Winch is ordained for the purchase of salt. For the prioress' chamber, for tablecloths and towels and tabites[364] in linen and saye, and for other things which are needed for guests and for the household, is set aside all the produce of our land and tenements in Thorpland and in Wallington. For the repair of our houses and of our church in Crabhouse and for sea dykes and marsh dykes and for the wages of our household and for other petty expenses is ordained all the produce of our lands, tenements and rents in Wiggenhall, with the exception of the pasture for our beasts and of our fuel. Similarly the breeding of stock, and all the profits which may be drawn from our beasts in Tilney, in Wiggenhall and in Thorpland, and in all other places (saving the stock for our larder, and draught-beasts for carts and ploughs and saving four-and-twenty cows and a bull) are assigned and ordained for the repair of new houses and new dykes, to the common profit of the house[365]."

This practice of earmarking certain sources of income may be illustrated from almost any monastic chartulary, for it was common for benefactors to earmark donations of land and rent to certain special purposes, more especially for the clothing of the nuns, for the support of the infirmary, or for a special pittance from the kitchen[366]. Similarly bishops appropriating churches to monastic houses sometimes set aside the proceeds for special purposes[367]. The result of the practice was that the obedientiaries of certain departments, more especially the cellaress, chambress and sacrist, had to keep careful accounts of their receipts and expenditure, which were submitted annually to the treasuress, when she was making up her big account. Very few separate obedientiaries' accounts survive for nunneries, partly because the majority were small and the treasuress not infrequently acted as cellaress and did the general catering herself. Cellaresses' accounts, however, survive for Syon and Barking, chambresses' accounts for Syon and St Michael's Stamford (the latter merely recording the payment to the nuns of their allowances) and sacrists' accounts for Syon and Elstow[368]. In one column these accounts set out the sources from which the office derives its income. This might come to the obedientiary in one of two ways, either directly from the churches, manors or rents appropriated to her, or by the hands of the treasuress, who received and paid her the rents due to her office, or if no revenues were appropriated to it, allocated her a lump sum out of the general revenues of the house. Thus at Syon the cellaress drew her income from the sale of hides, oxhides and fleeces (from slaughtered animals and sheep at the farm), the sale of wood, and the profits of a dairy farm at Isleworth, while the chambress simply answered for a sum of L10 paid to her by the treasuresses. In another column the obedientiary would enter her expenditure. This might take two forms. According to the Benedictine rule and to the rule of the newly founded and strict Brigittine house of Syon, all clothes and food were provided for the nuns by the chambress and cellaress; and accordingly their accounts contain a complete picture of the communal housekeeping. In the later middle ages, however, it became the almost universal custom to pay the nuns a money allowance instead of clothing, a practice which deprived the office of chambress of nearly all its duties and possibly accounts for the rarity of chambresses' account rolls. The Syon chambress' account is an example of the first or regular method; the St Michael's, Stamford, account of the second. More rarely the nuns received money allowances for a portion of their food. The growth of this custom of paying money allowances will be described in a later chapter[369]; here it will suffice to consider the housekeeping of a nunnery in which that business was entirely in the hands of the chambress and cellaress.

The accounts throw an interesting light on the provision of clothes for a convent and its servants. An account of Dame Bridget Belgrave, chambress of Syon (who had to look after the brothers as well as the sisters of the house) has survived for the year 1536-7. It shows her buying "russettes," "white clothe," "kerseys," "gryce," "Holand cloth and other lynen cloth," paying for the spinning of hemp and flax, for the weaving of cloth, for the dressing of calves' skins and currying of leather, and for 3000 "pynnes of dyuerse sortes." She pays wages to "the yoman of the warderobe," "the grome," the skinner and the shoemakers and she tips the "sealer" of leather in the market place[370]. Treasuresses' accounts also often give interesting information about the purchase and making up of various kinds of material. At St Radegund's, Cambridge, the nuns were in receipt of an annual dress allowance, but the house made many purchases of stuff for the livery of its household and in 1449-50 the account records payments

to a certain woman hired to spin 21 lbs. of wool, 22_d._; and to Alice Pavyer hired for the same work, containing in the gross 36 lbs. of woollen thread 6_s._; and paid to Roger Rede of Hinton for warping certain woollen thread 1-1/2_d._; and to the same hired to weave 77 ells of woollen cloth for the livery of the servants 3_s._ 5_d._; and paid to the wife of John Howdelowe for fulling the said cloth 3_s._ 6_d._; and paid to a certain shearman for shearing (i.e. finishing the surface of) the said cloth 14-1/2_d._

The next year the nuns make similar payments for cleaning, spinning, weaving, warping, fulling and shearing wool (an interesting illustration of the subdivision of the cloth industry) and disburse 9_s._ 9_d._ to William Judde of St Ives for dyeing and making up this cloth into green and blue liveries for the servants of the house[371].

The cellaresses' accounts, which show us how the nun-housekeeper catered for the community, are even more interesting than the chambresses' accounts. The convent food was derived from two main sources, from the home farm and from purchase. The home farm was usually under the management of the cellaress and provided the house with the greater part of its meat, bread, beer and vegetables, and with a certain amount of dairy produce (butter, cheese, eggs, chickens). Anything which the farm could not produce had to be bought, and in particular three important articles of consumption, to wit the salt and dried fish eaten during the winter and in Lent, the salt for the great annual meat-salting on St Martin's day, and the spices and similar condiments used so freely in medieval cooking and eaten by convents more especially in Lent, to relieve the monotony of their fasting fare. The nuns of St Radegund's, Cambridge, used to get most of their salt fish at Lynn, whence it was brought up by river to Cambridge. From the accounts of 1449-51 it appears that the senior ladies made the occasion one for a pleasant excursion. There is a jovial entry in 1450-1 concerning the carriage by water from Lynn to Cambridge of one barrel[372] and a half of white herrings, two cades[373] of red herrings, two cades of smelts, one quarter of stockfish and one piece of timber called "a Maste" out of which a ladder was to be made (2_s._ 4_d._), together with the fares and food of Dame Joan Lancaster, Dame Margaret Metham, Thomas Key (the bailiff) and Elene Herward of Lynn to Cambridge (2_s._ 8_d._). Another entry displays to us Dame Joan Lancaster bargaining for the smelts and the stockfish at Lynn. Fish was usually bought from one John Ball of Lynn, who seems to have been a general merchant of considerable custom, for the nuns also purchased from him all the linen which they needed for towels and tablecloths, and some trenchers. Occasionally, also, however, they purchased some of their fish at one or other of the fairs held in the district; in 1449-50 they thus bought 8 warp[374] of ling and 6 warp of cod from one John Antyll at Ely fair and 14 warp of ling from the same man at Stourbridge fair, an interesting illustration of how tradesmen travelled from fair to fair. At St John Baptist's fair in the same year they bought a horse for 9_s._ 6_d._, 2 qrs. 5 bushels of salt, some timber boards and three "pitcheforke staves." In the following year they bought timber, pewter pots, a churn, 10 lbs. of soap and 3 lbs. of pepper at the famous fair of Stourbridge, and salt and timber at the fair of St John Baptist. In 1481-2 they bought salt fish, salt, iron nails, paper, parchment and "other necessities" at the fairs of Stourbridge and of St Etheldreda the Virgin[375].

The fish-stores illustrate a side of medieval housekeeping, which is unfamiliar to-day. Fresh fish was eaten on fish-days whenever it could be got. Most monastic houses had fishing rights attached to their demesnes, or kept their own fish-pond or stew. The nuns of St Radegund's had fishing rights in a certain part of the Cam known as late as 1505 as "Nunneslake"[376]. But a great deal of dried and salted fish was also eaten. In their storehouse the nuns always kept a supply of the dried cod known as stockfish for their guest-house and for the frater during the winter. It was kept in layers on canvas and was so dry that it had to be beaten before it could be used; it is supposed to have derived its name from the stock on which it was beaten, or, as Erasmus preferred to say, "because it nourisheth no more than a dried stock"[377]. For Lent the chief articles of food were herrings and salt salmon, but the list of salt store purchased by the cellaress of Syon in 1536-7 shows a great variety of fish, to wit 200 dry lings, 700 dry haberden (salted cod), 100 "Iceland fish," 1 barrel of salt salmon, 1 barrel of [white] herring, 1 cade of red herring and 420 lbs. of "stub" eels[378]. The chief food during Lent, besides bread and salt fish, was dried peas, which could be boiled or made into pottage. Thus Skelton complains of the monks of his day:

Saltfysshe, stocfysshe, nor heryng, It is not for your werynge; Nor in holy Lenton season Ye wyll nethyr benes ne peason[379].

In Lent also were eaten dried fruits, in particular almonds and raisins and figs, the latter being sometimes made into little pies called risschewes[380]. The nuns of Syon purchased olive oil and honey with their other Lenten stores. The list of condiments which they bought during the year, for ordinary cooking purposes, or for consumption as a relief to their palates in Lent, or as a pittance on high days and holidays, includes, in 1536-7, sugar (749-3/4 lb.), nutmegs (18 lb.), almonds (500 lb.), currants (4 lb.), ginger (6 lb.), isinglass (100 lb.), pepper (6 lb.), cinnamon (1 lb.), cloves (1 lb.), mace (1 lb.), saffron (2 lb.), rice (3 qrs.), together with figs, raisins and prunes[381]. Surely the poor clown, whom Autolycus relieved so easily of his purse, was sent to stock a convent storehouse, not to furnish forth a sheep-shearing feast and the sister who sent him was a sister in Christ:

Let me see, what am I to buy...? Three pound of sugar; five pound of currants; rice,--what will this sister of mine do with rice?... I must have saffron, to colour the warden pies; mace, dates,--none; that's out of my note; nutmegs seven; a race or two of ginger,--but that I may beg;--four pound of prunes and as many of raisins of the sun[382].

Lent fare was naturally not very pleasant, for all the mitigations of almonds and figs. At other times of the year the convent ate on fish-days fresh fish, when they could get it, otherwise dried or salt fish, and on meat-days either beef or some form of pig's flesh, eaten fresh as pork, cured and salted as bacon, or pickled as sowce[383]. Mutton was also eaten, though much more seldom, for the sheep in the middle ages was valued for its wool, rather than for its meat, and was indeed a scraggy little animal, until the discovery of winter crops and the experiments of Bakewell revolutionised stock-breeding and the English food-supply in the eighteenth century. The nuns also had fowls on festive occasions, eggs, cheese and butter from the dairy and vegetables from the garden. The staple allowance of bread and beer made on the premises was always provided by the convent, even when the nuns had a money allowance to cater for themselves in other articles of food[384]. Some idea of the menu of an average house is given in the Syon rule:

For the sustres and brethren sche [the cellaress] shal euery day for the more parte ordeyne for two maner of potages, or els at leste for one gode and that is best of alle. If ther be two, that one be sewe [broth] of flesche and fische, after [according to what] the day is; and that other of wortes or herbes, or of any other thing that groweth in the yerthe, holsom to the body, as whete, ryse, otemele, peson and suche other. Also sche schal ordeyne for two sundry metes, of flesche and of fysche, one fresche, another powdred [salted], boyled, or rosted, or other wyse dyghte, after her discrecion, and after the day, tyme and nede requyreth, as the market and purse wylle stretche. And thys schal stonde for the prebende, which is a pounde of brede, welle weyed, with a potel of ale and a messe of mete.... On fysche dayes sche schal ordeyn for whyte metes, yf any may be hadde after the rewle, be syde fysche metes, as it is before seyd. Also, ones a wyke at the leste, sche schal ordeyn that the sustres and brethren be serued withe newe brede, namely on water dayes, but neuer withe newe ale, nor palled or ouer sowre, as moche as sche may. For supper sche schal ordeyn for some lytel sowpyng, and for fysche and whyte mete, or for any other thynge suffred by the rewle, lyghte of dygestyon equyualente, and as gode to the bodyly helthe.... On water dayes sche schal ordeyne for bonnes or newe brede, water grewel, albreys and for two maner of froytes at leste yf it may be, that is to say, apples, peres or nuttes, plummes, chiryes, benes, peson, or any suche other, and thys in competent mesure, rosten or sothen, or other wyse dyghte to the bodyly helthe, and sche must se that the water be sothen with browne brede in maner of a tysan, or withe barley brede, for coldenes and feblenes of nature, more thys dayes, than in dayes passed regnynge[385].

On certain special days the nuns received a pittance, or extra allowance of food, sometimes taking the shape of some special delicacy consecrated to the day. On Shrove Tuesday they often had the traditional pancakes, or fritters, called crisps at Barking[386] and flawnes at St Michael's, Stamford[387]. Maundy Thursday, otherwise called Shere Thursday (the Thursday before Easter) was the great almsgiving day of the year. On this day the kings and queens of England, as well as the greatest dignitaries of the church and of the nobility, were accustomed to give gowns, food and money to the poor, who clustered round their gates in expectance of the event, and ceremonially to wash the feet of a certain number of poor men and women, to commemorate Christ's washing of His disciples' feet. Benefactors who left land to monastic houses for purposes of almsgiving often specified Maundy Thursday as the day on which the alms were to be distributed. It was customary also for monks and nuns to receive a pittance on this day; and welcome it must have been after the long Lenten fast. The nuns of Barking had baked eels, with rice and almonds and wine. The nuns of St Mary de Pre (St Albans) had "Maundy ale" and "Maundy money" given to them. The nuns of St Michael's, Stamford, had beer and wafers and spices[388]. There was always a feast on Christmas day and on most of the great feasts of the church and the various feasts connected with the Virgin. There was a pittance on the dedication day of the convent and sometimes on other saints' days. There were also pittances on the anniversaries of benefactors who had left money for this purpose to the convent, and sometimes also on profession-days, which were "the official birthdays of the nuns"[389]. In the monotonous round of convent life these little festivities formed a pleasant change and were looked forward to with ardour; in some of the larger houses a special obedientiary known as the Pittancer had charge over them.

Food is one of the housekeeper's cares; servants are another; and between them they must have wrinkled many a cellaress' brow, though the servant problem at least was a less complicated one in the middle ages than it is to-day. The persons to whom regular yearly wages were paid by a convent fall into four classes: (1) the chaplains, (2) the administrative officials, steward, rent-collectors, bailiff, (3) the household staff and (4) the hinds and farm-servants.

(1) The chaplains. The account rolls of a nunnery of average size usually contain payments to more than one priest. The nuns had to pay the stipend of their own chaplain or mass-priest, of any chaplains or vicars whom they were bound to provide for appropriated churches, and sometimes of a confessor. The number of chaplains naturally varied with the size of the house and with the number of appropriated churches. Great houses such as Barking, Shaftesbury and Wilton had a body of resident chaplains attached to the nunnery church and paid the stipends of priests ministering to appropriated parishes. Poor and small nunneries, such as Rusper, paid the fee of one resident chaplain. It is worthy of note that certain important and old established abbeys in Wessex had canons' prebends attached to their churches. At each of the abbey churches of Shaftesbury, St Mary's Winchester, Wherwell and Wilton there were four prebendary canons, at Romsey there were two (one of whom was known as sacrist). Moreover at Malling in Kent there were two secular prebends, known as the prebends of magna missa maioris altaris and alta missa. These prebends were doubtless originally intended for the maintenance of resident chaplains, but as early as the thirteenth century the prebends were almost invariably held by non-residents and pluralists as sinecures, the reason being, as Mr Hamilton Thompson points out, "the rise in value of individual endowments and the consequent readiness of the Crown, as patron of the monasteries, to discover in them sources of income for clerks in high office." Thus these great abbeys also followed the usual custom of hiring chaplains to celebrate in their churches, though some of the wealthier prebends were taxed with stipendiary payments towards the cost of these[390].

The chaplain of a house usually resided on the premises, sometimes receiving his board from the nuns; occasionally inventories mention his lodgings, which were outside the nuns' cloister. Thus the Kilburn Dissolution inventory, after describing all the household offices, goes on to describe the three chambers for the chaplain and the hinds, the "confessor's chamber" and the church[391]. At Sheppey the chamber over the gatehouse was called "the confessor's chamber" and was furnished forth with

a hangyng of rede clothe, a paynted square sparver of lynen, with iij corteyns of lynyn clothe, a good fetherbed, a good bolster, a pece of blanketts and a good counterpeynt of small verder, in the lowe bed a fetherbed, a bolster, a pece of blanketts olde, and an image coverled, a greate joynyd chayer of waynscot, an olde forme, and a cressar of iron for the chymneye[392].

The relations between the nuns and their priest were doubtless very friendly; he would be their guide, philosopher and friend, sometimes acting as custos of their temporal affairs and always ready with advice.

Madame Eglentyne, it will be remembered, took three priests with her upon her eventful pilgrimage to Canterbury, and one was the never-to-be-forgotten Sir John, whom she mounted worse than his inimitable skill as a raconteur deserved:

Than spak our host, with rude speche and bold And seyde un-to the Nonnes Preest anon, "Com neer, thou preest, com hider thou sir John, Tel us swich thing as may our hertes glade, Be blythe, though thou ryde up-on a jade. What though thyn hors be bothe foule and lene, If he wol serve thee, rekke not a bene; Look that thyn herte be mery evermo." "Yis, sir" quod he, "yis, host, so mote I go, But I be mery, y-wis I wol be blamed":-- And right anon his tale he hath attamed, And thus he seyde unto us everichon, This swete preest, this goodly man, sir John[393].

Certainly the convent never went to sleep in a sermon which had the tale of Chauntecleer and Pertelote for its exemplum.

Yet the nuns were not always happy in their priests. There is the case (not, it must be admitted, without its humour) of Sir Henry, the chaplain of Gracedieu in 1440-41. Sir Henry was an uncouth fellow, it seems, who was more at home in the stable than at the altar. He went out haymaking alone with the cellaress, and in the evening brought her back behind him, riding on the same lean jade. Furthermore "Sir Henry the chaplain busies himself with unseemly tasks, cleansing the stables, and goes to the altar without washing, staining his vestments. He is without devotion and irreverent at the altar and is of ill reputation at Loughborough and elsewhere where he has dwelt." Poor Sir Henry,--

See, whiche braunes hath this gentil Preest, So greet a nekke, and swich a large breest! He loketh as a sperhauk with his yen; Him nedeth nat his colour for to dyen With brasil, ne with greyn of Portingale.

The bishop swore him to "behave himself devoutly and reverently henceforward at the altar in making his bow after and before his masses"[394].

(2) The administrative officials. These varied in number with the size of the house and the extent of its possessions. The chief administrative official was the steward, who is not, however, found at all houses. Sometimes the office of steward was complimentary and the fee attached was nominal. The Valor Ecclesiasticus shows that great men did not disdain the post; Andrew Lord Windsor was steward of the Minoresses without Aldgate, of Burnham and of Ankerwyke[395]. Henry Lord Daubeney was steward of Shaftesbury[396], George Earl of Shrewsbury of Wilton[397], Henry Marquess of Dorset of Nuneaton[398], Sir Thomas Wyatt of Malling[399], Sir W. Percy of Hampole, Handale and Thicket[400], Lord Darcy of Swine[401], the Earl of Derby of St Mary's Chester[402], and Mr Thomas Cromwell himself of Syon and Catesby[403]. Some houses, such as Wilton, had more than one steward, and Syon maintained stewards as well as bailiffs in most of the counties in which it had land. Some of these great men were obviously not working officials; but many of the houses maintained stewards at a good salary, who superintended their business affairs, kept the courts of their manors, and were sometimes lodged on the premises[404]. The larger houses also paid one or more receivers and rent-collectors and sometimes an auditor, but in the average house the most important administrative official was the bailiff.

While large landowners kept bailiffs at each of the different manors which they held, most nunneries employed a single bailiff, an invaluable factotum who performed a great variety of business for them, besides collecting rents from their tenants and superintending the home farm. Thomas Key, the bailiff of St Radegund's Cambridge, 1449-51, is an active person; he receives a stipend of 13_s._ 4_d._ per annum and an occasional gift from the nuns; he rides about collecting their rents in Cambridgeshire; he accompanies them to Lynn on the annual journey to buy the winter stock of salt fish, or sometimes goes alone; he can turn his hand to mending rakes and ladders (for which he gets 8_d._ for four days' work), or to making the barley mows at harvest time, taking 3_d._ a day for his pains; and indeed he is regularly hired to work during harvest, at a fee of 6_s._ 8_d._ and two bushels of malt[405]. Often the bailiff's wife was also employed by the nuns; the nuns of Sheppey paid their bailiff, his wife and his servant all substantial salaries[406]. Some nunneries had a lodging set apart for him in the convent buildings, outside the nuns' cloister[407].

Evidence often crops up from a variety of sources concerning the relations between the nuns and this important official. That these might be very pleasant can well be imagined. Sometimes a bailiff of substance and standing will place his daughter in the nunnery which he serves[408]; sometimes when he dies he will remember it in his will[409]. But all bailiffs were not good and faithful servants. Mr Hamilton Thompson considers that male stewards and bailiffs were often "responsible for the financial straits to which the nunneries of the fifteenth century were reduced, and ... certainly did much to waste the goods of the monasteries, generally in their own interests"[410]. Such a man was Chaucer's Reeve, though he did not waste land, for the reason that one does not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs:

His lordes sheep, his neet, his dayerye, His swyn, his hors, his stoor and his pultrye, Was hoolly in this reves governing, And by his covenaunt yaf the rekening.... His woning was ful fair upon an heeth, With grene trees shadwed was his place. He coude bettre than his lord purchace. Ful riche he was astored prively, His lord wel coude he plesen subtilly, To yeve and lene him of his owne good, And have a thank, and yet a cote and hood[411].

Several records of law-suits are extant, in which prioresses are obliged to sue their bailiffs in the court of King's Bench for an account of their periods of service[412], and visitation documents sometimes give a sorry picture of the convent bailiff. The bailiff of Godstow (1432) went about saying that there was no good woman in the nunnery[413]; the bailiff of Legbourne (1440) persuaded the prioress to sell him a corrody in the house and yet he "is not reckoned profitable to the house in that office, for several of his kinsfolk are serving folk in the house, who look out for themselves more than for the house"[414]; the bailiff of Redlingfield (1427) was the prioress's lover[415].

Romsey Abbey seems at various times to have been peculiarly unfortunate in its administrative officials. In 1284 Archbishop Peckham had to write to the abbess Agnes Walerand and bid her remove two stewards, whom she had appointed in defiance of the wishes of the convent and who were to give an account of their offices to his official[416]. At the close of the fifteenth century, when the abbey was in a very disorderly state under Elizabeth Broke, there was serious trouble again. In 1492 this Abbess was found to have fallen under the influence of one Terbock, whom she had made steward. She herself confessed that she owed him the huge sum of 80_l._ and the nuns declared that in part payment of it she had persuaded them to make over to him for three years a manor valued at 40_l._ and had given him a cross and many other things. His friends haunted her house, especially one John Write, who begged money from her for Terbock. The nuns suspected him of dishonesty, asked that the rolls of account for the years of his stewardship might be seen and declared that the house was brought to ill-fame by him[417]. In 1501 Elizabeth Broke had fallen under the influence of another man, this time a priest called Master Bryce, but she died the next year. Her successor Joyce Rowse was equally unsatisfactory and equally unable to control her servants. Bishop Foxe's vicar-general in 1507 enjoined that a nun should be sought out and corrected for having frequent access, suspiciously and beyond the proper time, to the house of the bailiff of the monastery, and others who went with her were to be warned and corrected too; moreover he summoned before him Thomas Langton, Christopher George and Thomas Leycrofte, bailiffs, and Nicholas Newman, villicum agricultorem, and admonished them to behave better in their offices on pain of removal[418].

(3) The household staff naturally varied in size with the size of the nunnery. The Rule of St Benedict contemplated the performance of a great deal if not all of the necessary domestic and agricultural work of a community by the monks themselves. But this tradition had been largely discarded by the thirteenth century, and if the nuns of a small convent are found doing their own cooking and housework, it is by reason of their poverty and they not infrequently complain at the necessity. They were of gentle birth and ill accustomed to menial tasks. The weekly service in the kitchen would seem to have disappeared completely. The larger houses employed a male cook, sometimes assisted by a page, or by his wife, and supervised by the cellaress, or by the kitcheness, where this obedientiary was appointed. There were also a maltster, to make malt, and a brewer and baker, to prepare the weekly ration of bread and ale; sometimes these offices were performed by men, sometimes by women. There was a deye or dairy-woman, who milked the cows, looked after the poultry, and made the cheeses. There was sometimes a lavender or laundress, and there were one or more women servants, to help with the housework and the brewing. The gate was kept by a male porter; and there was sometimes also a gardener. In large houses there would be more than one servant for each of these offices; in small houses the few servants were men or maids of all work and extra assistance was hired when necessary for making malt or washing clothes. In large houses it was not uncommon for each of the chief obedientiaries to have her own servant attached to her checker (office) and household, who prepared the meals for her mistress and for those nuns who formed her familia and messed with her. The head of the house nearly always had her private servant when its resources permitted her to do so, and sometimes when they did not.

(4) The farm labourers. Finally every house which had attached to it a home farm had to pay a staff of farm labourers. These hinds, whose work was superintended by the bailiff and cellaress, always included one or two ploughmen, a cowherd and oxherd, a shepherd, probably a carter or two and some general labourers. Again the number varied very considerably according to the size of the house and was commonly augmented by hiring extra labour at busy seasons. The farm was cultivated partly by the work of these hired servants, partly by the services owed by the villeins.

The nuns, with their domestic and farm servants, were the centre of a busy and sometimes large community, and a very good idea of their social function as employers may be gained from the lists of wage-earning servants to be found in account rolls or in Dissolution inventories. We may take in illustration the large and famous abbey of St Mary's, Winchester, and the little house of St Radegund's, Cambridge. St Mary's, Winchester, had let out the whole of its demesne in 1537, and the inventory drawn up by Henry VIII's commissioners therefore contains no list of farm labourers. The household consisted of the Abbess and twenty-six nuns, thirteen "poor sisters," twenty-six "chyldren of lordys knyghttes and gentylmen browght vp yn the sayd monastery," three corrodians and five chaplains, one of whom was confessor to the house, and twenty-nine officers and servants. The Abbess had her own household, consisting of a gentlewoman, a woman servant and a laundress, and the prioress, subprioress, sacrist and another of the senior nuns each had her private woman servant "yn her howse." There were also two laundresses for the convent. The male officers and servants were Thomas Legh, generall Receyver (who also held a corrody and had two little relatives at school in the convent), Thomas Tycheborne clerke (who likewise had two little girl relatives at school and a boy who will be mentioned), Lawrens Bakon, Curtyar (officer in charge of the secular buildings of the nunnery), George Sponder, Cater (caterer or manciple, who purchased the victuals for the community), William Lime, Botyler, Rychard Bulbery, Coke, John Clarke, Vndercoke, Richard Gefferey, Baker, May Wednall, convent Coke, John Wener, vndercovent Coke, John Hatmaker, Bruer, Wylliam Harrys, Myller, Wylliam Selwod, porter, Robert Clerke, vnderporter, William Plattyng, porter of Estgate, John Corte and Hery Beale, Churchemen, Peter Tycheborne, Chyld of the hygh aulter, Rychard Harrold, seruaunt to the receyver and John Serle, seruaunt to the Clerke[419].

St Radegund's, Cambridge, in 1450 was a much smaller community, numbering about a dozen nuns. In the treasurers' accounts the wage-earning household is given as follows, together with the annual wages paid by the nuns. The confessor of the house came from outside and was a certain friar named Robert Palmer, who received 6_s._ 8_d._ a year for his pains; they also paid a salary of 5_l._ a year to their mass-priest, John Herryson, 2_s._ 4_d._ to John Peresson, the chaplain celebrating (but only per vices, from time to time) at the appropriated church of St Andrew's, and 13_s._ 4_d._ to the "clerk" of that church, a permanent official. Thomas Key, the invaluable bailiff and rent-collector mentioned above, got the rather small salary of 13_s._ 4_d._, but added to it by exactly half as much again during harvest. Richard Wester, baker and brewer to the house, received 26_s._ 8_d._, John Cokke, maltster (and probably also cook, as his name suggests) received 13_s._ 4_d._ The women servants included one of those domestic treasures, who effectively run the happy household which possesses them, or which they possess: her name was Joan Grangyer and she is described as dairy-woman and purveyor or housekeeper to the Prioress; the nuns paid her 20_s._ in all, including 6_s._ 8_d._ for her livery and 2_s._ 4_d._ as a special fee for catering for the Prioress. Then there was Elianore Richemond, who seems to have been an assistant dairy-maid, for in the following year the nuns had replaced her by another woman, hired "for all manner of work in milking cows, making cheese and butter," etc.; her wages were 8_s._ 4_d._, including a "reward" or gift of 20_d._ The other women servants were Elizabeth Charterys, who received 3_s._ 1_d._ for her linen and woollen clothes and her shoes, but no further wages, and Dionisia yerdwomman, who received 9_s._ and doubtless did the rough work. This completed the domestic household of the nuns. Their hinds included three ploughmen, John Everesdon (26_s._ 8_d._), Robert Page (16_s._) and John Slibre (13_s._ 4_d._ and 2_s._ 6_d._ for livery); the shepherd, John Wyllyamesson, who received 22_s._ 8_d._ and 8_d._ for a pair of hose; the oxherd Robert Pykkell, who took 6_s._ 8_d._; and Richard Porter, husbandman, who was hired to work from Trinity Sunday to Michaelmas for 13_s._ 4_d._[420]

It will thus be seen that the size of a convent household might vary considerably. The twenty-six nuns of St Mary's Winchester had gathered round themselves a large household of nine women servants, five male chaplains and twenty male officers and servants; but they boarded and educated twenty-six children, gave three corrodies and supported thirteen poor sisters (who may however have done some of the work of the house). The twelve nuns of St Radegund's lived more economically, with three male and four female servants and six hinds, besides the chaplains; but even their household seems a sufficiently large one. The ten nuns of Whitney Priory employed two priests, a waiting maid for the prioress, nine other women servants and thirteen hinds[421]. It is notable that the maintenance of a larger household than the revenues of the house could support is not infrequently censured in injunctions as responsible for its financial straits. At Nuncoton in 1440 the Prioress said that the house employed more women servants than was necessary[422] and a century later Bishop Longland spoke very sternly against the same fault:

that ye streight upon sight herof dymynishe the nombre of your seruants, as well men as women, which excessyve nombre that ye kepe of them bothe is oon of the grette causes of your miserable pouertye and that ye are nott hable to mayntene your houshold nouther reparacons of the same, by reason whereof all falleth to ruyne and extreme decaye. And therefore to kepe noo moo thenne shalbe urged necessarye for your said house[423].

On the other hand many nunneries could by no means be charged with keeping up an excessive household. Rusper, which had leased all its demesnes, had only two women servants in its employ at the Dissolution[424], and nuns sometimes complained to their visitors that they were too poor to keep servants and had to do the work of the house themselves, to the detriment of their religious duties in the choir. At Ankerwyke one of the nuns deposed that

they had not serving folk in the brewhouse, bakehouse or kitchen from the last festival of the Nativity of St John the Baptist last year to the Michaelmas next following, in so much that this deponent, with the aid of other her sisters, prepared the beer and victuals and served the nuns with them in her own person.

At Gracedieu there was no servant for the infirmary and the subcellaress had to sleep there and look after the sick, so that she could not come to matins. At Markyate and Harrold the nuns had no washerwoman; at the former house it was said "that the nuns have no woman to wash their clothes and to prepare their food, wherefore they are either obliged to be absent from divine service or else to think the whole time about getting these things ready"; at the latter a nun said "that they have no common washerwoman to wash the clothes of the nuns, save four times a year, and at other times the nuns are obliged to go to the bank of the public stream to wash their clothes"[425]. It was probably on account of the poverty of Sinningthwaite that Archbishop Lee ordered "the susters and the nonys there [that] they kepe no seculer women to serve them or doe any busynes for them, but yf sekenes or oder necessitie doe require"[426].

As to the relations between the servants and their mistresses both visitation reports and account rolls sometimes give meagre scraps of information, which only whet the appetite for more. The payment of the servants was partly in money, partly in board or in allowances of food, partly in livery; stock-inventories constantly make mention of allowances of wheat, peas, oats or oatmeal and maslin (a mixture of wheat and rye) paid to this or that servant, and account rolls as constantly mention a livery, a pair of hose, a pair of shoes, or the money equivalent of these things, as forming part of the wage. The more important agricultural servants had also sometimes the right to graze a cow, or a certain number of sheep on the convent's pastures. Some servants, however, received wages without board, others wages without livery. Account rolls seem to bear witness to pleasant relations; there is constant mention of small tips or presents to the servants and of dinners made to them on great occasions. This was Merry England, when the ploughman's feasts enlivened his hard work and comfortless existence; he must have his Shrovetide pancakes, his sheep-shearing feast, his "sickle goose" or harvest-home, and his Christmas dinner; and the household servants must as often as may be have a share in the convent pittance. The very general custom of allowing the female servants to sleep in the dorter (against which bishops were continually having to make injunctions) must have made for free and easy and close relations between the nuns and the secular women who served them; and sometimes one of these would save up and buy herself a corrody in the house to end her days[427]. Occasionally these close relations led to difficulties; a trusted maid would gain undue influence over the prioress and the nuns would be jealous of her. Thus at Heynings in 1440 it was complained that the prioress "encourages her secular serving women, whom she believes more than her sisters in their words, to scold the same her sisters"[428]. Sometimes also a servant would act as a go-between between the nuns and the outside world, smuggling in and out tokens and messages and sundry billets doux[429].

On the other hand there were sometimes difficulties of a different nature. The servants got out of hand; they brought discredit on the nuns by the indiscretions of their lives; they gossiped about their mistresses in the neighbourhood, or were quarrelsome and pert to their faces. At Gracedieu in 1440-41 a nun complained "that a Frenchwoman of very unseemly conversation is their maltstress, also that the secular serving folk hold the nuns in despite; she prays that they may be restrained; and chiefly are they rebellious in their words against the kitchener"[430]; evidently the author of the Ancren Riwle spake not utterly from his imagination when he bade his ladies "be glad in your heart if ye suffer insolence from Slurry, the cook's boy, who washeth dishes in the kitchen"[431]. At Markyate also the servants had to be warned "that honestly and not sturdyly ne rebukyngly thai hafe thaym in thaire langage to the sustres"[432] and at Studley a maidservant had boxed the ears of a novice of tender age[433]. At Sheppey in 1511 it was said that "the men servants of the prioress do not behave properly to the prioress, but speak of the convent contemptuously and dishonestly, thus ruining the convent"[434].

The peculiar difficulties suffered in this respect by an important house, which maintained a large body of servants, are best illustrated, however, in the case of Romsey Abbey. At this house in 1302 Bishop John of Pontoise ordained

that a useless, superfluous, quarrelsome and incontinent servant and one using insolent language to the ladies shall be removed within a month, ... and especially John Chark, who has often spoken ill and contumaciously in speaking to and answering the ladies, unless he correct himself so that no more complaints be made to the bishop[435].

John Chark possibly learned to bridle his tongue, but the tone among the Romsey servants was not good, for in 1311 Bishop Henry Woodlock ordered that "no women servants shall remain unless of good conversation and honest; pregnant, incontinent, quarrelsome women and those answering the nuns contumaciously, all superfluous and useless servants, [are] to be removed within a month"[436]. In 1387 the difficulties were of another order; writes William of Wykeham:

the secular women servants of the nuns are wont too often to come into the frater, at times when the nuns are eating there, and into the cloister while the nuns are engaged there in chapter meetings, contemplation, reading or praying, and there do make a noise and behave otherwise ill, in a way which beseems not the honesty of religion. And these secular women often keep up their chattering, carolling (cantalenas) and other light behaviour, until the middle of the night, and disturb the aforesaid nuns, so that they cannot properly perform the regular services. Wherefore we ... command you that you henceforth permit not the aforesaid things, nor any other things which befit not the observances of your rule, to be done by the said servants or by others, and that you permit not these servants to serve you henceforth in the frater, and a servant or any other secular person who does the contrary shall be expelled from the monastery. Moreover we forbid on pain of the greater excommunication that any servants defamed for any offence be henceforth admitted to dwell among you, or having been admitted, be retained in your service, for from such grave scandals may arise concerning you and your house[437].

We have spoken hitherto about the regular hired servants of the house; but it must not be forgotten that nuns normally had a larger community dependent in part upon them. From time to time they were wont to hire such additional labour as they required, whether servants in husbandry taken on for the haymaking and harvest season, artificers hired to put up or repair buildings, workers in various branches of the cloth industry to make the liveries of the servants, itinerant candle-makers to prepare the winter dips, or a variety of casual workers hired at one time or another for specific purposes. The nuns of St Radegund's, Cambridge, entered in their accounts a large number of payments besides those to their regular servants. In moments of stress they were wont to fall back upon a paragon named Katherine Rolf. We first meet her in 1449-50 weeding the garden for four days, for the modest sum of 4-1/2_d._; but soon afterwards behold her on the roof, aiding the thatchers to thatch two tenements, at 1-1/2_d._ a day for twelve days. In the next year she is more active still; first of all she is found helping the candle-makers to make up 14 lbs. of tallow candles for the guest-house. Then she combs and cleans a pound of wool for spinning. Then she appears in the granary helping the maltster to thresh and winnow grain. In the midst of these activities she turns an honest penny by selling fat chickens to the convent. The nuns also disburse small sums of money to the man who cleanses the convent privies, to the slawterman for killing beasts for the kitchen, to Richard Gardyner for beating stockfish, to Thomas Osborne for making malt, to Thomas the Smith for providing a variety of iron implements and cart-clowtes, for shoeing the horses and for mending the ploughshares, and for "blooding the horses on St Stephen's day" (Dec. 26), to Thomas Boltesham, cowper, for mending wooden utensils, to Thomas Speed for helping in the kitchen on fair-day and to John Speed for working in the garden. Besides these they hire various day-labourers to work in the fields during the sowing season, hay-making and harvest, or to lop trees round the convent and hew up firewood, or to prune and tie up the vines (for there were English vineyards in those days). Then there is a long list of carpenters, builders, thatchers, and plumbers engaged in making and repairing the buildings of the convent and its tenants. Finally there are the various cloth workers, spinners, weaver, fuller, shearman, dyer and tailor hired to make the servants' clothes, concerning whom something has already been said[438].

Thus many persons came to depend upon a nunnery for part of their livelihood, who were not the permanent servants of the house, and this goes further than any imagined reverence for the lives and calling of their inmates to explain the anxiety shown in some places for the preservation of nunneries when the day of dissolution came. The convents were not only inns and boarding-houses for ladies of the upper class and occasionally schools for their daughters; they were the great employers and consumers of their districts, and though their places must sooner or later be taken by other employers and consumers, yet at the moment many a husbandman and artificer must have seen his livelihood about to slip away from him. The nuns of Sheppey, in their distant and lonely flats, clearly employed a whole village[439]. They could not count on hiring carpenter and thatcher for piece-work when they wanted them in that thinly populated spot, so they must hire them all the year round. Twenty-six hinds and seven women they had in all, working in their domestic offices or on the wide demesne, most of which they farmed themselves, for food was far to buy if they did not grow it. Three shepherds kept their large flock, a cowherd drove their kine and hogs, a horse-keeper looked to their 17 horses. All the other men and women were busy with the beasts and the crops in the field, or with work in the brew house, the "bultyng howse," the bakehouse and the dairy. So also at the abbey of Polesworth, where fifteen nuns employed in all thirty-eight persons, women servants, yeomen about the household and hinds. "In the towne of Pollesworth," said the commissioners, who were gentlemen of the district and not minded to lose the house:

ar 44 tenementes and never a plough but one, the resydue be artifycers, laborers and vitellers, and lyve in effect by the said house.... And the towne and nonnery standith in a harde soile and barren ground, and to our estymacions, yf the nonnery be suppressed the towne will shortely after falle to ruyne and dekaye, and the people therin, to the nombre of six or seven score persones, are nott unlike to wander and to seke their lyvyng as our Lorde Gode best knowith[440].

So also at St Mary's, Winchester, whose household we have described:

the seid Monastery ... standith nigh the Middell of the Citye, of a great and large Compasse, envyroned with many poore housholdes which haue theyr oonly lyuynge of the seid Monastery, And have no demaynes whereby they may make any prouysion, butt lyue oonly by theyr landes, making theyr prouysion in the markettes[441].

The old order changeth, yielding place to new, and a livelihood fulfils itself in many ways; yet many labouring folk as well as gentlemen must have felt like the commissioners at Polesworth and St Mary's, Winchester, when the busy monastic housewives were dispersed and the grain and cattle sold out of barn and byre. There is no-one so conservative as your bread-winner, and for the best of reasons.